


Howling Commando

by AnonEhouse



Category: Captain America (2011), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, F/M, Fuck Or Die, M/M, Mpreg, Multi, Other, Soul Bond, Spousal sharing/Omega sharing, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-22
Updated: 2012-10-08
Packaged: 2017-11-10 12:36:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 30
Words: 41,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/466350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/AnonEhouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In this apocalyptic world survival takes precedence over nearly everything. Throw in Alphas, Omegas, soul bonds, and shape-shifting, and it's a wonder Steve Rogers remains such a level-headed person. Tony Stark is still a specially flaky snowflake, of course.</p><p>(The non-con is one scene at the beginning & is more accurately described as dubious consent. He consented beforehand, on the fuck or die principle, when he was capable of giving consent.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've turned off anonymous commenting on this fic. The benefits of having an account are many, even if you only wish to read fic (like bookmarks, and subscriptions to fics in progress, series, and authors.) And they're free. :^)

(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)

Steve stopped the instant he entered the bunker, his head jerking up and nostrils flared. Omega. In heat, and in distress. He didn't really notice the Beta soldiers gathered to greet him and escort him to the general, brushing them aside carelessly. If he'd been thinking about it, he would have rationalized his actions by saying that since the enemy had targeted their Omega enclaves in the first barrage, the remaining Omegas were even more rare and valuable than they'd always been.

His focus was all on locate and protect as he ran through the damp and cramped cement corridors, seeing glimpses of the worker Beta's faces, wide-eyed as they flung themselves out of his way. The small part of him that was still capable of rational thought was glad they had good reflexes. He didn't want to waste time killing anyone. Maybe he wasn't as rational as all that. It didn't matter. The scent trail cut off suddenly and he stopped, bewildered, nerves jangling.

"What?" He looked around for answers and saw General Fury striding toward him, scowling even more than usual.

"Sorry about that, Captain. Some idiot left an unfiltered door open."

"Where's the Omega?"

"He's being cared for, don't worry about it."

Steve growled. He didn't mean to, but damn it, even before the serum he'd always had an overwhelming protective instinct. Even when none of them would allow him so much as a meaningless heat-relief mating he'd defended Omegas from mistreatment. He'd often got the shit beat out of himself that way, and never regretted it, wearing his bruises as badges of honor. And this Omega smelled really bad. "I have to see that for myself, General."

Fury put his hand up as if to touch Steve's arm, but stopped. "He's... not normal, Steve. He's one of the serum failures."

"What? Who the hell would risk an Omega?" Steve's anger was blazing hot. If he could just find the Omega...

"It wasn't like that... there was an accident and he was dying. It was a chance to save him. It just... didn't turn out well."

Steve had seen some of the failures, the monsters with deformed bodies and twisted minds. There was nothing to do for them, so they sent them out to fight along with the rest of the Alphas. They're desperate, and can't afford pity, but he always, always remembered that he could have been one of them, instead of one of the rare successes, the most successful in fact. "I don't care. I have to see, you know that." Fury is a Beta, so he doesn't understand the pure imperative of it, but he had to know that Steve wasn't going to give up.

Fury sighed. "All right. Just remember, while it looks bad, it's the best we can do for him." Fury started leading Steve down a seldom used corridor toward the labs where the few researchers that remained to them were housed in the most secure part of the bunker. "He's our top scientist, in between... attacks."

"You mean when he's not in heat?"

"Not just that." Fury spoke very calmly, with no emotion. His control was one of the reasons even the most aggressive Alphas respected his orders. "Maybe because he's an Omega the serum affected him differently. He's unstable. When he's emotional he morphs. When he calms, he reverts to human. It's close to a Catch-22 right now because he can't calm down until he comes out of heat, but he won't green-light for anyone so he has to be restrained while he's bred." Fury looked at Steve and then back down the corridor. "It hurts him, but it's the only way. We even tried sterilizing him, but his body repairs all injuries, including that."

Steve growled again, seeing everything red-washed in rage. They were red-lighting an Omega. Steve didn't need to look at his own wrist to see the light flaring scarlet, feeling Fury as an enemy instead of the normal green for friend/ally/neutral at worst. Fury waved at a nervous-looking Beta guard and opened a heavy door.

Sight and sound and smell hit Steve hard. The Omega was chained down to the floor by his wrists and ankles, bucking and howling and writhing under an Alpha who was trying to breed him. He was a monster, only vaguely human, with a blunt muzzle full of sharp teeth, claws on his hands and feet, and dirty gray-brown patches of fur covering his deformed body, bones pressing against skin at unnatural angles. He turned his head when Steve entered the room and his eyes... his eyes were all too human. 

The other Alpha looked up at Steve. He smelled frightened, had been smelling of terror even before Steve came into the room, his light as red as the one on the Omega's bloody wrist. "Get out," Steve snarled, "all of you, get out!" Fury grabbed the Alpha's arm and pulled him away just in time, before Steve went for the man's throat. The door slammed shut and Steve looked around to make sure there was no one except him and the Omega, baring his teeth against the lingering scent of the other Alpha. "It will be all right," he said, kneeling to stroke gently down the Omega's spine, the knobs prominent, even more than the thinness that comes with a prolonged heat. "Shhh." He wasn't afraid, and his light had turned green as proof. "Look, see, I won't hurt you."

The Omega shivered and sniffed at Steve's wrist. He didn't pull back, even though those jaws looked as if they could take off his hand in one bite. The Omega's light green-shifted and Steve smiled. Then he frowned and ran his hand down the Omega's arm. The manacles were lined with silver, and the flesh bubbled and bled where it touched the metal, reformed, and broke open again, continuously. Steve drew a sharp breath. "I'll get these off."

"Awwlll... urrr... oooo," the Omega said, tongue working thickly in jaws not meant for speech.

"You'll hurt me?" Steve rubbed the Omega's neck, watching as the eyes half-closed in reaction. "I'll chance it." He found the key hanging from a nail on the wall, and undid the Omega's feet first, and then his hands. Then he stepped back and braced himself, waiting to see what the Omega would do. 

For a few seconds nothing much happened. The Omega lay still, panting, while the wounds on his wrists and ankles healed. Then he grunted and curled up, stretched and lengthened, and curled, and stretched to lengthen again. The fur fell out, only to regrow in a different pattern- a pure white band over the upper body started at the top of his head to end just before the short tail. The tail, sides of the head, lower body, belly and legs were glossy black. He was making soft noises, but his scent was less distressed, so apparently this change wasn't painful. When he climbed to his four short legs and shook himself, Steve decided that he was actually quite beautiful for a monster, long bodied and powerful-looking, something along the lines of a weasel, but much stockier. The oddest thing was that he had slightly longer fur, well, really, hair, on his head, and on his face in the shape of a meticulously trimmed beard. The blunt head raised and the mouth opened, revealing short, but sharp, teeth as he noisily sniffed the air.

Steve stood still, letting the Omega settle and scent him. He'd never mated with an Omega, but experience wouldn't have done him much good anyway. Omegas are people. This... was something different. The Omega-beast shifted from paw to paw and then rose onto hind legs, dancing clumsily from foot to foot while trilling, really, the only word for it, a soft, almost musical chirruping cry. It tilted its head to look at him sideways. The eyes were still surprisingly human, although a darker brown, with blue ...oh... blue reflections coming from a circle set in its chest fur. 

"You're beautiful," Steve said, holding out one hand. Steve's senses were, like all the rest of him, at the peak of human development, but he still couldn't follow the movement when the Omega fell to all fours, then leaped to him, rearing up on hind legs again to put wickedly clawed paws over his shoulders and take his throat in its, his, jaws. Steve closed his eyes. He wouldn't hurt an Omega; he'd rather die. But the claws didn't rip, and the teeth didn't tear. Daringly, he put his arms around the Omega's body. "You're shivering. It's all right. I'm here. I won't let anyone hurt you. Don't be afraid." He stroked the warm, silky fur, long soothing caresses. The Omega's scent changed, the musk lightening to something sweet. The fur slipped under his fingers, falling away until he was touching smooth skin, and there was a man pressing against him, still shaking, and making soft noises that struck deep in Steve's belly. "It's all..." Steve was distracted by his wrist, the green overlaid by a blue reflection from the Omega's chest light. He moved his hand away, but the light on his wrist stayed blue, a deep steady, unmistakable blue. "Blue." He pulled the Omega's hand down to find the same color, just as bright there, looking even brighter by contrast against skin that probably hadn't been touched by the light of day since the alien invasion, two years ago.

"Blue," the Omega agreed, trembling harder. 

"Do you understand?" Steve had never seen an Omega this deep in heat before, he wasn't sure if this was just parroting back the word. "Blue for bondmate. Not just this one heat. Forever." 

"Forever," the Omega said, again in that same soft voice. The sweet scent was stronger and so was the trembling.

"I guess it doesn't matter whether you understand or not." Steve slipped his pack off his back, taking his shield with it. "You're mine."

"Mine," the word was breathed hot against his shoulder.

"Are you all right?" How many times had he been red-lighted? Steve was prepared for his bondmate to be hideously ugly, but Fury had said the man was a top scientist. It wouldn't be fair for his mind to have broken at the last, for him to have lost even that.

"All right," came the same toneless answer and Steve couldn't stand it any longer. He pushed back, holding the Omega at arm's length, to look down into sharp brown eyes and a mouth curved in a wicked smile. And damn, but his bondmate was as beautiful human as he was in fur. And vain enough to know it, judging by the elaborately shaped beard.

He shook the Omega once in relief and then hugged him even tighter. "Why did you do that?" He was so aroused it was painful, and it must be much worse for his bondmate. 

"To prove I could." And then teeth, blunt human teeth, scraped along his skin, and Steve groaned. "Tell me my name," the Omega said.

"I don't... know it." Steve gasped as the Omega rubbed against him, hot and wet, so wet, the scent now sharp mixed with the sweet, making Steve dizzy drunk on it.

"I'm yours." There was a pause. "Tell me my name."

"Oh! Your name is Rogers. I'm Steve Rogers. What was your name?" Steve had never expected to be bonded and certainly never expected to be bonded to an old-fashioned Omega who'd want to give up their name.

"Anthony Edward Stark. I like Tony Rogers, much better."

"Tony." It's strange, but saying the name broke something loose inside Steve, and for the first time in his life he felt like a real Alpha, not someone who was only useful to protect other people's Omegas. Tony was _his_. He pulled Tony down to the floor and laid on top of him. "Don't tease me. I don't want to hurt you. You don't know how strong I am."

"Good." Tony spread his legs and arched up against Steve's weight. "I'm unbreakable."

Steve remembered the bloody wrists, healing over and over again, Prometheus bound, and tortured, but unable to die. "I'll kill anyone who tries to hurt you," he promised. And there, that was it, Tony went limp for a second, and then began frantically struggling to turn over. Face to face was good for social sex, good enough to ease the itch but without the risk of pregnancy. "You're sure, Tony?" In the middle of a war wasn't the best time to try to raise a kid. 

"Yes! I need it." Tony bit at Steve's throat, hard enough to draw blood. "It's not enough, never enough."

A cold chill ran down Steve's spine as he finally understood what Fury had meant, why they'd chained Tony in that position. Tony couldn't stop cycling, sex wasn't enough to trigger metabolic normalization. No wonder he was so thin. "All right, all right, Tony. Come on. I'll give you what you need, I'll take care of you." He kept his hands on Tony as he sat back, guiding him, pulling him back when Tony panicked and tried to get away.

"Shh. I've got you. It's all right." Tony was much stronger than he looked, all hard muscle under that smooth skin. There should be more fat, his hands should find a little softness around the belly, not that it made Tony ugly, but his Omega hadn't been properly taken care of, he should have been there for Tony. And yes, he knew how irrational that was, but at the moment, it made perfect sense. He had to be much rougher than he liked to get Tony to settle, head down on his crossed wrists, knees spread and braced

"Please," Tony said, and it was such a soft sound to hold so much desperation. Steve had heard Omegas begging for it in porn and in romance novels, and the few times he was allowed to stand guard when Bucky helped an Omega out of heat, but that was never like this. 

"Come on." Steve stroked down the line of Tony's spine, thumbs pressing in, following with his mouth to lick at the sweet skin, feeling the back slowly shift to a full arch. "Beautiful. Keep breathing, that's it. I've got you." The scent of mating slick was overpowering; Tony was wide open and wet to the knees. He mounted and slid in, holding Tony firmly in place as he began rolling his hips, deeper with each stuttering thrust. "So good, you're so good," he moaned.

"Please!" Tony shook worse than ever, so aroused his erection was jerking against his belly, dripping. He shifted to move a hand back to grab at himself, but Steve caught him before he could complete the move.

"No! You have to wait, Tony. I'm not...not...yet." He'd had all the sex-ed classes, he knew how things were supposed to work. Of course, ideally you have a date, get to know the Omega, show them the love nest you've prepared, exchange STD cleanliness certificates, and make love in comfort, not in a bare cement box, but that was in a different world, where people weren't so desperate they experimented on scrawny Alphas, where monsters didn't die as heroes, where aliens didn't stride across the landscape in huge metal spiders, feeding on people. Steve held onto Tony, and fucked harder, trying to reach deep enough to hit the nerve bundle he remembered from the diagrams he and Bucky had giggled over in sex-ed, drawing little arrows and X marks the spot in their textbooks.

Tony whined, actually whined and his back shifted under Steve's weight, arching that last, impossible looking inch just as Steve thrust as hard as he could, and, "FUCK," Steve shouted as he felt it. The textbooks all said that was just imagination, but he was sure he felt Tony unlock for him, letting him into the deep place, the best place. It must have hurt, because Tony cried out and tried to get away from him, but Steve knew what to do. He grabbed Tony's erection and stroked the wet length firmly even as he came so hard he was seeing lightning strikes, and his knot swelled to lock them together. His hand was spattered with Tony's come before Steve released him and put his hands down to either side to take some of the weight off Tony. "Tony? Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Yeah. I think... I'm... a little tired now, Steve." 

Steve eased them down onto their sides, spooning Tony close so he could enjoy the sated tingle of the link. He decided it was like the moment before orgasm, but it was a lazy feeling of pleasure, with nothing to do except touch as much of his sleeping Omega as he could reach. His Omega. He'd have to figure out what to do with Tony. Feed him, first thing. Then talk with him. Find out what happened to him, what that thing was in his chest. What his other shape could do, whether he could control the change when he wasn't forced into it. Could Tony come with him on missions; his other shape sure looked formidable? Or should he stay here and help Tony with whatever he worked on for Fury? What names would he like for the baby? Steve stroked Tony's belly and smiled. The world had to go to hell before he found heaven. Somewhere, someone had a sense of humor.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nesting, sexing, stew and a bit of semi-serious conversation.

It was warm. That was the first thing Tony noticed. The next was how _safe_ he felt. Warm, and safe, so safe. And there were such good smells, hot meat and something like an Alpha, but better. He must be dreaming. He couldn't remember the last time he had a meal that didn't taste like sawdust, hardly worth the bother of swallowing. And Alphas always smelled either too thick, cloying heaviness at the back of his throat, or like a minty sting that made him want to sneeze. He burrowed deeper into the luxury of warmth, unwilling to give up the dream.

"Tony? I know you're awake."

The voice sounded the way the Alpha smelled. Tony sat up, wide awake, and wincing at a weird twinge insi... oh. Yeah. He'd finally given in to biology and got himself knocked up. He blinked up at the Alpha. _His_ Alpha. He brought his hand up to check his wrist light, yes, blue as ever blue was. "How did I get here?" He looked around, and despite the unfamiliar nest of pillows and blankets, he recognized it as his room. Generally a cheerless place where he crashed when he couldn't stay awake any longer, it now felt like... well, like home, he guessed, not being able to recall feeling that way about anyplace before. But then, it probably wasn't the place, but the Alpha standing there, cooking something that smelled very like rabbit stew, over a hotplate that Tony was pretty sure he didn't own.

"Steve? Tell me you didn't carry me here in front of everyone?" 

Steve blushed. An actual rose pink flush. It made Tony feel very strange, he wasn't sure whether he liked the feeling or not. This whole business was very new to him. Emotions, ewww. Well, wimpy ones, like Omega-soft stuff. He'd fought against that all of his life. "You did, didn't you? Bridal style, I bet."

"Well, you were asleep, and you wouldn't wake up."

Tony threw a pillow at him. "Ah! You've ruined my reputation!" And Steve, that bastard Alpha, caught the pillow one-handed, and laughed.

Tony flopped back in the luxurious warmth of his nest. "Where did you get all this stuff?"

"Well, I kinda yelled at your section chief." Steve scratched at the back of his head. "I'm afraid I wasn't very polite, but you know..."

"Oh, God, you yelled at Dad! I am so, so, very sorry I missed that." Tony grinned. "Bring that stew here, baby. I'm starving."

"Your father? I just thought he was the Alpha in charge." Steve's blush deepened. He poured the stew into a bowl, a nice actual porcelain bowl with a gilt edge, again something Tony had never seen, and brought it to Tony along with a spoon, and a linen napkin. Honestly, Steve was really impressing Tony with his efforts at nest-building on short notice.

"That's what he thinks, too. Aww, you're so sweet, look at you. You're adorable." Tony grabbed the stew and began wolfing it down. "And you can cook, too! Fuck, I really lucked out." Tony reached out with the hand not currently scooping up stew and pulled at Steve's arm. "C'mon, give us a cuddle."

Steve sat next to Tony, put an arm around him, and smelled wonderful. Tony had a brief thought about sharing the stew, but he was too hungry. Anyway, he shouldn't disrespect Steve's ability as a provider that way. Alphas were sensitive about things like that. You always had to tiptoe around their delicate egos. He usually resented that, but he _liked_ Steve, not just because the sex was so good. Mind-blowingly good. He'd used Alpha-size dildos to get over heat in the past but there was no comparison between that and the real thing. It's true, once you go Alpha, you never want to go back. He finished the stew and handed the bowl to Steve. 

"Do you want more?"

"Yeah." Tony lowered his chin and used the 'looking up through eyelashes' trick, smiling when Steve's scent ramped up immediately. "I want more." He put both hands under Steve's shirt. "Come on, Poppycock." Steve made a throaty, needy noise deep in his chest, dumped the bowl onto the floor where it landed on a pile of furs, luckily, and pushed Tony back into the bedding.

Tony moaned, already feeling the warmth pool down low, wet and loose, faster than he ever had responded before. Well, of course, pregnancy makes Omegas randy as hell, good survival tactic to encourage the provider/protector to stay close. Yeah, intellectually he'd known it, but feeling it was a whole lot better than he'd imagined. He was still conveniently naked, so he didn't have to do anything except watch as Steve hastily stripped, and damn yes, Tony was so fucking lucky. Would you look at that? And Steve liked to kiss, which was an unexpected bonus. Tony spread his legs and raised his hips for Steve to shove a few pillows under. After that he pretty much just hung on for the ride, giggling at inappropriate moments because he just felt so ridiculously happy, up until Steve's thrusts stuttered before he got deep enough to knot and Tony had his first dry orgasm, a wonderful shuddering sensation internally that eased his erection without wilting it. He wriggled on Steve's dick, and was rewarded with another. "Oh, yeah." If he'd known being pregnant was this good, he'd have gone for it years ago. Steve shifted to his side, and then onto his back, taking Tony with him, jerking as the motion triggered a series of lovely orgasms. Tony panted against Steve's chest. "I want... to give you a medal."

Steve chuckled and stroked Tony's back. "We didn't get to know each other. Can we talk?"

"Now?" Tony said, with possibly a bit of a whine. He wanted to see how many orgasms he could get in a row before it became boring. He was fairly sure the answer was 'LOTS'. 

"Well, there's a war on, you know." Steve's big, warm hands circled over Tony's back, soothingly. "We can't take a full honeymoon."

"Yeah. I would get a sensible husband." Tony licked Steve's chest. So sweet. "Sure, what do you want to know?"

"I want to know everything." One hand came up to card through Tony's hair, and possibly he melted a bit, he'd always had a weakness for scalp massage. "But I guess I should know about your other shape, and that thing in your chest, first. I need to know how to take care of you."

Tony felt warmth in the pit of his stomach at the calm determination in Steve's voice. It helped to offset his nervousness about revealing how very broken he was to his incredibly perfect Alpha. "I was working on a weapon and something went wrong. My chest was full of shrapnel, too much for surgery, a lot of it was impossible to reach without killing me. It was going to slowly migrate into my heart until it killed me if something wasn't done. My dad...he implanted an electromagnet powered by a car battery to keep it stable. That was... well, not good, but necessity, you know? And I had an inspiration that led me to making this as a replacement, so I'm fine. Really."

Steve didn't say anything for a few minutes, just rubbing Tony's back, then he asked, "What about the shape-changing?"

"Oh, yeah. After a few months the power source began poisoning me. Dad and I figured out a replacement... but we just don't have the resources. I... I kinda gave up. I got a couple guns and I was going to go out and see if I could take a few snakes with me, but Fury caught me and brought me back. Then Dad gave me a dose of the super soldier serum. I didn't want it. I'd seen too many failures, but hey, it turned out lucky. When I change it clears out the poison, gives me a few good weeks. My other shape is about as bright as a clever dog, and he's vicious, so... well... it's awkward, but could be worse." Tony fell silent, having confessed about as much as he had the courage for.

"He wasn't vicious with me."

"Well, you, you're... different. He liked you."

"I liked him, too." Steve kissed Tony on the temple. "Do you think he could learn to fight with my team? I can't... I can't leave the Commandos leaderless, and I can't leave you behind."

"You'd let an Omega go into battle?" Tony felt Steve's arms tighten around him.

"I'd hate it. But there isn't any safe place, so I'd worry about you no matter what."

"Yeah, I can see that." Tony turned his head to press his cheek against Steve's chest. "I think he'd obey you. Mostly. To the extent he understands. Like I said, a pretty smart dog. And he's damn strong, and fast, and his skin is extremely tough. Not bullet-proof, but damn near."

"That's good." Steve brushed his fingers over the back of Tony's neck. "Does he know who he is?"

"Not really. You could name him, I guess, make it easier to train him."

"Huh. Yeah. I've been trying to think what kind of animal he is."

"Not really anything, but I was curious and asked some of the biologists for their opinion. They said the closest is the honey badger."

"Ah. 'Honey'."

"You wouldn't."

" 'Honey'. I like it. It's short, easy to remember. Sweet."

Tony sighed. "Fine, Suga Lumps."

Steve chuckled, and the motion gave Tony another nice orgasm, so really, he wasn't complaining.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Howard gives Steve the shovel speech, we learn a bit more about Tony's past, and meet the rest of the Howling Commandos. Plot is likely to commence in the next chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It turns out that Tony's in his early 20's and Steve around 25. Howard's in his mid-40's (Visualize the actor in Captain America rather than the one in Iron Man 2, but older than he was in the movie.)

Steve hadn't any reason to go into the researchers' domain before now. Crowded together like this, with so few Omegas to buffer scents, people were more strict about territorial incursions. So he hadn't known who he was growling at when he discovered the only advantage Tony's room had over an Alpha barracks was the privacy, and lost his temper. Even under wartime conditions an Omega deserved better. 

The Commandos had followed Steve when they scented what had happened so he'd been able to leave Bucky and Rhodey guarding the door to his sleeping mate's quarters while he confronted the Alpha in charge. There'd been a lot of growling and some very sharp aggression-scent released before Steve demanded comforts for his pregnant Omega, Tony. The Alpha had looked at his wrist, seen the flicker from bondblue to angerred, and immediately turned efficiently helpful.

Steve stroked his sleeping Omega's back and tried to think how to handle the situation. Most people didn't ask an Omega's guardian for their blessing these days, and of course a guardian couldn't very well refuse an Alpha's claim when they'd blue-bonded, but Tony wasn't the only one to seek comfort in outmoded tradition. He hadn't been able to court Tony properly, at least he could do this much. 

 

When Tony woke the second time, Steve had a saucepan of boiled coffee and a sort of cake, a fluffy sugared biscuit topped with canned peaches, warmed and waiting. "Hey," he said, softly the moment he saw Tony reach out seeking him, still not quite awake, "I'm here."

Tony rubbed at his face with both hands, yawned and sat up. "My God, is that coffee?" His eyes widened and he grinned. "Steve, you are wonderful. Coffee. Cooffffeeeeeee."

Steve laughed and poured a cup. "Should I be jealous?" he asked as he handed it to Tony.

"Yes, absolutely, my love for caffeine is a pure and noble thing." Tony wrapped his hands around the cup, closed his eyes and inhaled the steam, lips parted in bliss. At that moment he looked so adorable Steve wanted to wrap him up and hide him from the world. He settled for putting the cake on a plate along with a fork and sitting next to Tony with his arm around him. Tony shifted to lean against him. Steve kissed the side of his neck.

"And what are your feelings on cake?"

"I might possibly cheat on coffee with cake. But I would feel terribly guilty about it." He opened his eyes and grinned at Steve, before attacking the cake with enthusiasm while Steve stroked his back. 

The knock at the door didn't surprise Steve. Tony's scent would have reached the corridor and told people that he was awake and contented, almost smug, really. Tony looked at Steve, ceding the territory control to him. 

"It's the Commandos. My team. They want to meet you."

Tony nodded. "Do any of them have mates?"

"Not now." So many people had been lost. Steve felt the old dull grief for a moment and then Tony took his hand and squeezed it, understanding without words. Steve cleared his throat. "Come in."

The door opened and the Commandos filed in, helmets in their hands to show respect, all lights a steady green. Steve was proud of them. Not many Alpha squads worked as seamlessly as his did and without even a Beta buffer to help. Tony was still eating and drinking, which would be rude if he were an Alpha, meaning that he considered them weak, but the body language of an Omega was different. It said that he trusted Steve to protect him. "These are my people, Tony. My family." 

Tony finished the cake and coffee at his leisure, while looking at their hopeful, eager faces. He could, if he wanted, refuse any of them, with no explanation, and Steve would assign them to other squads. He tilted his head and considered, and then finally nodded. "My family."

They came up, one at a time, to be introduced and to touch Tony, it didn't matter where, hand or neck or arm or thigh. Tony was naked and smelled of Steve. They were family and this ritual made it formal. "Natasha Romanova. Thor Odinsson. Clint Barton. Phil Coulson. Harold Hogan- we call him Happy. Peggy Carter. Pepper Potts. James Rhodes- he goes by Rhodey. And my second in command James Barnes- he's Bucky." Wordlessly they promised to protect Tony and his child, while he promised in turn a lesser bond than mate, but still more than most people had these days. The Omega was the heart of the family. As the old saying went, 'Omega ain't happy, ain't nobody happy'.

 

After the Commandos left Steve and Tony cleaned up a little and got dressed. Tony said, "I think I could go without jumping your bones for a few hours. I'll show you the labs. We've got some interesting projects in the works." 

"Sure." Steve was glad he wouldn't have to talk Tony into leaving the room. He wanted to make things right with Tony's father.

"And then we can go outside."

"Tony." Steve's stomach clenched at the thought of letting Tony leave the safety of the base. True, he'd asked Tony to join the Commandos and he'd have to leave the base to go on missions, but just because a thing was necessary didn't make it any easier. "Maybe we ought to wait for that. We can take a few days, I'm sure."

Tony rolled his eyes. "If we wait a few days, Fury will find some excuse to assign you to the base just to keep me tied down forever. I've been stuck here for two years! Have a heart." And then he leaned against Steve and did the flirty eyelash trick, adding in a lower lip pout for good measure. Tony was so playing him, but Steve couldn't find himself minding. So Tony was volatile and self-obsessed and spoiled. He was Steve's Omega, his to spoil even more.

He nodded. "All right, but can you be Honey outside?" It was risky, but they had to start somewhere, and it was probably better now, when the bonding was so fresh. Even if freedom went to feral Tony's head, he'd be safe in that shape until the bond drew him back.

Tony looked hesitant, and then nodded. "Just you and me. I don't know how much carryover there is- he may not recognize the Commandos." And Tony looked so unsure of himself that Steve had to kiss him and one thing led to another, and they had to wash up and get dressed again before going to the research division.

 

Two steps into the research lab, and Tony was lured away by a Beta complaining that a device was 'acting up' and he went into details that meant nothing to Steve. Whatever the problem was, it intrigued Tony enough that he didn't notice when Steve walked a short distance away to the head Alpha. Now that he knew who the man was, he could see the resemblance. Tony's chest was a little broader, and his chin a little sharper, but they were built along the same lines, and had the same sharp intelligent eyes. "Sir," Steve said, "if I was out of line earlier, I'd like to apologize. I'm Captain Steven Rogers, leader of the Commandos, nine of the toughest bastards alive. Tony's accepted me, and them."

"Huh." The Alpha put aside the tool he'd been using and stood up. His scent was mingled, confused like everyone else in the area because it was overlaid by Tony. Steve wasn't at all sure what his response would be. "I'm Howard Stark, head of the research division, and I know a lot more than nine ways to make you the sorriest bastard who ever lived if you ever make my son regret bonding to you." Howard probably weighed about half what Steve did, but when he looked him over, as if charting vulnerable places, Steve believed him implicitly. "I know he's a spoiled, arrogant, annoying little prick, so you may be tempted to try to tame him into a proper little Omega. I urge you to resist that, I really do. We don't have so many good warriors that you wouldn't be missed."

"I..." Steve held his ground, but it wasn't comfortable. For a little guy, Howard was sincerely scary. "I love Tony, just the way he is." He took a deep breath. "He wants to go out on missions with the Commandos. I'm not going to stand in his way. I hope I won't have to fight you on this. It's important to me, and I'm pretty sure it's important to him."

Howard growled softly, but Steve felt it wasn't directed at him. "Yeah. It would be. Tony... his mother was a Beta."

Steve blinked, surprised by that. Any of the bearing genders, the female Betas and Alphas, and both sexes of Omega, could conceive any gender, including Omega, but it was vanishingly rare for a non-Omega to successfully carry an Omega fetus to term. They lacked the Omega's unique ability to produce thousands of eggs at once, all of which unite with sperm and then compete for viability, leaving only the healthiest embryo to develop. Basically, Omegas were genetically delicate, but they'd evolved to compensate for it, to the extent that it was equally rare for an Omega's pregnancy to fail to produce a healthy child. Steve couldn't help looking at Tony. He seemed fit.

"He's all right now, but it was touch and go for a while when he was an infant. It was... stressful, and I'm afraid Maria and I overreacted. We watched him every second, kept him in a near- sterile environment. We were afraid even to hold him." Howard scowled. "And then when he started walking and talking, both before he was eight months old, he turned out to be a genius, but an idiot when it came to self-preservation. Most kids when they hurt themselves doing something, they stop doing it. Tony would sit down and experiment to see why and what and... we were tearing our hair out, and after a few years our worrying was creating so much scent-stress in the environment that it was making him ill again. He wouldn't listen to us, we'd not bonded with him properly, so when he was four we sent him away to a boarding facility for orphaned, fragile, or abused Omegas where they could care for him properly. He's never forgiven us for that. He's never got over feeling abandoned." Howard went silent and gave Steve a hard look. "So please do believe what I say. If you ever make Anthony feel unwanted, I will personally go through all nine of your elite warriors in order to gut you like a fish." Then Howard smiled. "So, do we understand each other?"

"Yes, sir." Steve stood at full attention, and only refrained from saluting because he didn't want to create a scene. 

"Good. You have my blessings. May I touch your Omega, Captain Rogers? This will be my first grandchild."

Steve relaxed. "Of course, sir." Steve turned to Tony, not having to look for him. Their bond was very strong. "Tony?" 

"Mmm? Minute, Steve." Tony was poking at something shiny, with various knobs and lights which was making a warbling whining noise. "I think this is weird. This is weird, isn't it?" Tony flicked a few switches. "I've just cut out all the other devices on the same wavelength. Should be emitting a steady signal but, that's..." The whine stopped warbling, but now there were gaps, moments of silence.

Howard had come up beside Tony, to rest one hand lightly against Tony's belly, fingers splayed to barely touch. "That's..." Howard said at the same time as Tony, "Morse code."

***


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rescue mission is planned. Tony is very excited about it. Tony never did have much sense of self-preservation.

"What's it say?" Steve had heard of Morse code, but it was so outdated he hadn't bothered to learn it. All he knew was that 'dot dot dot dash dash dash dot dot dot' for SOS didn't actually stand for anything, but was chosen as an emergency signal for ease of transmission and recognition. He recognized it now, before the gaps became more complicated and he was lost again.

"It says," Tony got a distant look on his face as he translated simultaneously with listening, "the Snakes are a lost flotilla. They have no contact with their origin planet. They want Earth as a colony, and breeding ground for their food animals."

Steve nodded. Everyone had seen the giant reptilian rabbit/tortoise creatures the Snakes had set loose in most of the arid places of the world. It also explained why they'd been systematically disrupting ecosystems that weren't already near-desert, and why most of their camps were in those places. Not incidentally, that's why Fury chose Area 51 as his base. There were a lot of Snakes in Nevada, and Fury had known they'd be fighting guerilla actions with little support or ability for long-distance strikes once the infrastructure collapsed, so he chose to be where his forces could apply maximum damage at minimal cost.

Howard had grabbed a pen and pad and was writing as fast as Tony spoke. 

Tony said, "The sender found a weapon. It sounds like the one we were looking for." Tony looked at Howard for a moment. "They think it could wipe out the Snakes, but they can't get it to work. They're requesting someone with research facilities to come for it. They're at the Very Large Array."

"That's seven hundred miles away," Howard said, dismayed. "Through some of the heaviest concentrations of Snakes."

"Yeah," Tony nodded. "It'll be interesting."

"Wait!" Steve said, "You're not thinking about going!" They'll have to check it out, of course they do, but Tony's not going that far into enemy held lands. Steve had planned on taking Tony on short strikes, going against lone Snake scouts, that sort of thing, where the Commandos could take out the enemy without much risk.

Tony blinked. "Wait, that was the end of the message. It's starting again." He frowned, and then grinned brightly. "Oh, YES! I _thought_ I recognized his hand. I'm going to go pack! Do we have any dried blueberries? Bruce used to love them!" Tony was bouncing up and down, obviously delighted, and giving off so much ecstatically euphoric scent that Steve was becoming light-headed.

Howard started to reach for Tony, then pulled his hand back and looked at Steve. "He's going to have the whole base bouncing off the walls."

"Tony." Steve moved to grasp Tony's shoulders. "Calm down. What's the rest of the message? Who's Bruce?"

"Oh." Tony melted into a vertical cuddle against Steve. "Bruce is my best friend. I thought he was dead. We met at boarding school. He was four years older than me, but really, really shy. I tried to teach him how to strut like he deserved."

"He's an Omega?" Well, that settled it, there's no way they're leaving an Omega stranded, no matter what it cost.

"Uh huh. Him and the whole team with him. Betty Ross, Peter Parker, Reed Richards," Tony said, making a face at Richards' name, "Jane Foster, Hank Pym and Loki Laufeyson. They asked not to be rescued, but that's ridiculous, you know you couldn't leave them there." Tony squirmed around in Steve's arms to look up at him. "Bruce and I learned Morse together, so we could make fun of the teachers in class by tapping on the desks." Tony pulled out all the stops- huge, shiny eyes, wobbly lip, raised eyebrows, the whole adorable Omega routine. "He's really delicate, you know? He had the shittiest childhood ever. You won't get him back in one piece without me."

Steve sighed. "I have to talk to Fury, get the logistics in order." He kissed Tony. "It'll take us more than a month to get there. Can they hold out that long?" Never before had Steve so bitterly regretted the loss of transport. They still had a few vehicles, but fuel had since long run out. A fit Alpha can march twenty-five miles a day, Betas around fifteen, but of course they'll have to forage and fight along the way, and naturally no one's ever even dreamed of assessing an Omega's forced marching ability, much less one who's in the early stages of pregnancy and who has an animal alter-ego. There's just no way of telling what will happen. The only thing Steve is sure of is that he can't leave seven Omegas to die. "Can you send them a message?"

Tony shook his head. "No. This is a vectorless, infradimensional, refractomagnetic..." Tony looked at Steve and started over. "It sets up an interference pattern in a broad wave. It can only send. If they had something that could both send and receive, they'd use it. Can't be based on the Array, that's just a receiver for extraterrestrial signal. They must have used it to find out about the aliens--- no idea how they translated..." Tony had a far-away look in his eyes. "It's really an interesting problem. There's no Rosetta Stone, but of course mathematical principles transcend species..."

"Yeah." Steve released Tony and patted him on the shoulder. "Stay here and listen in case the message changes, all right?"

"Yeah, uh huh, right." Tony was already reaching past Steve to prod at the equipment. "You know, maybe there's a way to set up a counter-interference...take too long to rig something sophisticated enough to send useful data, but breaks at regular intervals, something obvious, like the Fibonacci sequence... let them know someone heard..."

Steve turned away to face Howard. Howard said quietly, "Don't come back without him."

"I can promise you that, sir," Steve said before he left to find Fury, not insulting Howard by requesting he'd watch over Tony.

***

"You propose taking a newly pregnant Omega, who also happens to be an unstable shape-shifter, along with an all-Alpha squad on a months' long mission through enemy held territory? Is that right? Or did I miss part of it?" Fury had a vein throbbing in his temple. Steve couldn't really blame him.

"That seems to be it, sir."

"Not only an Omega, but my top researcher. Not only that, but my head of research's only son. Do you have ANY IDEA what this will do to base morale if you don't bring him back?" Fury was fighting to retain his Beta composure.

"Pretty much put it in the toilet, sir." Steve took a deep breath. "But I don't see that we have any acceptable alternatives. There are seven Omegas out there who may hold the key to our survival as a species. My team is the best. Tony has already accepted them as family. He'll slow us down, yes, but he'll also give us incentive. And when we get there, having a bonded, pregnant Omega with us will reassure the other Omegas. You know as well as I do that dragging terrified Omegas along would be impossible. They knew it, too. They specifically said not to rescue them."

"What is the world coming to when Omegas get all heroic on me?" Fury sighed. "All right. Here's what we're going to do. Every field team, every single Alpha and Beta that's remotely able to fight, is going out, fanning out around your line of march. We're going to strip the base bare of firepower and get those motherfucking Snakes off the plains and keep them too busy to notice your team." Fury reached behind his desk for a rocket launcher. Then he turned back to Steve. "This is a stupid-ass plan."

"Yes, sir." Steve saluted.

"Be ready to go within the hour. And for gods sake, make sure your team has clean STD certificates."

"Yes, sir." Steve wasn't worried about that. Pepper was their squad clerk and made sure everyone kept their paperwork in order.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And the journey begins.

Tony checked his pack, hefting it dubiously. No, too heavy, still. Then he brightened and dumped all the clothes on the bed, zipped the bag shut and lifted it again. "Perfect."

"Tony, you can't just pack tools," Steve sounded amused.

"I know. I've got dried blueberries in there, too. And a packet of ground coffee. And my beard trimming kit." Tony grinned at Steve. "Really, it's all I need."

"A soldier needs a knife, and a weapon, ammunition, and socks. Especially socks."

"I'm not a soldier," Tony pointed out. "But socks, ok. I'll put in a couple pair." Tony shrugged. "I know how to maintain weapons. And I know how to duck. That's about it, so why weigh myself down with them? You guys will protect me. Anyway, it's my honeymoon, and my family is gorgeous, the last thing I'll need will be clothes."

Steve looked down at his feet, but that didn't hide the rosy tint coloring his ears.

Tony laughed and dropped the pack on the bed. "You're blushing again! Do you have any idea how hot that is?" Tony had lost track of how many times he'd had sex with people. Fun-times sex. Friendly sex. Sex because too many people were scenting unhappy and it made his skin itch. Sometimes Omega/Omega sex because it's lovely with someone who knows what it feels like from the inside- and that was always really nice with Bruce, who was such a sweetheart. Sometimes he'd go with a lonely Beta, that always really made their day, even though they couldn't really _reach_ the way an Alpha dick would if Tony hadn't been too wary of pregnancy to risk it. In general, Tony just liked people, and he liked sex. And now he was supercharged and wanted to make the whole world happy with the power of really good sex. Well, second-hand, let them scent it, only his family got to touch him. Only Steve got to really have him. He wrapped himself around Steve. "We should use the bed you know, while we've still got it."

"We have to leave in fifteen minutes." Steve sounded strained.

"Uh huh," Tony replied as he licked a line up Steve's throat. "Ok, so you don't knot. I'm willing to compromise."

"Tony. No."

"Steeeeve. Yes." Tony undid Steve's trousers. "Really, we'd be saving time, because this..." Tony squeezed Steve's instant erection. "Would make it very very _hard_ to march, wouldn't it?"

"Oh, fuck." Steve fell onto the bed with Tony.

Tony giggled. "Exactly."

***

Fury gave Steve a resigned look when he and Tony appeared outside of the bunker half an hour later. The scent of excitement hung thick in the still, hot air. Fury had told everyone about the seven Omegas, so motivation was absolutely not a problem. When Tony emerged scenting strongly of post-coital pregnant bliss there was a universal, instinctive growl of approval and protectiveness. Tony preened and Steve drew himself up to his full height beside him, holding hands with Tony so their blue bond lights merged.

"ALL RIGHT," Fury bellowed. "Everyone's got their orders and their ammo. Go kick Snake-ass, and make me proud of all you dumb mothas!" Howard stood next to Fury in full combat gear, accessorized with a few shiny new tech-toy weapons. He gave Tony a thumbs up, and Steve a narrow-eyed look, and then followed Fury's unit when everyone broke up into groups and headed out, leaving Steve's unit alone. 

"Um," Tony said, suddenly feeling uncertain. "I think maybe everyone should get back." He began undressing. "Honey knows Steve, but I'm not sure there's enough memory carryover for him to recognize anyone else." 

Steve nodded. "Leave a gap there." He pointed roughly southeast. "If he runs at least he could run in the right direction."

The Commandos spread out in a semi-circle, and waited while Tony stripped naked and stuffed his clothes into his backpack. "Maybe you could teach him to carry it." Tony shifted nervously. "How about a kiss for luck?" 

Steve wrapped his arms around Tony and kissed him. "Remember, where ever you go, I'll find you," he whispered before standing back. 

Tony nodded, then closed his eyes and knelt. It didn't hurt, changing. Actually, it felt good, except for when he got stuck half way with silver poisoning him. But the vision change was always disconcerting and made him dizzy if he watched. He stretched and shifted, stretched and shivered and shook himself to settle his fur in place before he looked around and hissed at the people standing around.

"No, Tony... Honey. It's all right. Come here."

He swung his head around and took a deep breath. Yes. His mate. Good. And that thing on the ground smelled like belonging, too. He picked up the bundle in his jaws. Not food, but still, HIS, he wanted it.

"Honey?"

He looked up. His mate was big and strong, he's not sure why they're not the same shape, but really, it didn't matter, this was the scent of home, of mate. He whined and came close to nuzzle his mate's legs and ask for a backscratch. Those long front legs should be good for that, he thought. His mate rubbed his neck. Not good enough, but good. Then his mate tugged at his fur.

"Honey, come."

Honey. That's him? Yes. He looked suspiciously at the other people, but they were keeping a respectful distance, and didn't smell hostile, so he decided to ignore them. Mate began running, so he ran, too. Running is good, hot dirt under his claws, scents on the air. Good to be running with his mate. The others run, too, but he and mate are faster, which is good.

***

Steve pressed a little more, pushing himself close to his limit for a sustained run, and was pleased by how easily Honey kept up with him even though that long body curved in an awkward-looking lope; he seemed tireless. They'd left the others behind, which was slightly risky, but they'd cleared out all the Snakes near the base, so it wasn't absolutely insane. He stopped and Honey stopped a few feet ahead, then shook his head and came back, looking at Steve with bright, curious eyes. He took a deep breath. Now was the time to see if he actually was trainable. He felt a little ashamed of himself for doing it, but he had a bag of cooked liver in his pocket to serve as rewards.

"Honey, come," he said firmly, pointing to the ground at his feet.

After a brief pause, with one foot raised from the ground as if uncertain, Honey ambled forward and rubbed up against his legs again, firmly pressing his head and jaws against Steve's legs, almost knocking him down. Steve laughed and pushed him back, and then pressed his hand against Honey's haunches. "Sit, Honey! Sit."

Honey sat for a moment, blinking up at him, head tilted in puzzlement. "Good," Steve said, and opened the bag. Honey's nostrils flared, and he bounced up, knocking Steve to the ground, and pinning him with both front feet while he licked all the meat out of the bag. Then he licked Steve's face, and got off of him and sat in the exact pose Steve had put him in. Steve looked at him for a moment, then banged his head on the ground. "I see we're going to have to work on that."

***


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Family orgy time.

Steve sighed. They'd been making excellent time until Honey apparently got bored, or hungry, or both. So far he'd stopped to destroy a cactus and ate a lot of the wet pulp, killed a tortoise and ate most of that (very messily), and then swiftly dug several holes that yielded squirming creatures that followed the cactus and the tortoise down Honey's gullet. Steve was glad they'd slowed, so the others would soon catch up with them, but his training program had been pretty much a total failure. Steve would introduce a concept, such as _stay_ , Honey would look at him, and then cheerfully do whatever he felt like.

At the moment Honey was out of sight again after diving into a tangle of thorny brush. They were nearing Snake-held land, so he didn't even dare shout for Honey, not that it would matter. He was beginning to think about some sort of harness and leash... if there was anything they could make that Honey couldn't bite through in one snap. After seeing what happened to the tortoise's shell, he doubted that. He heard the rapid padding of Honey's claws on sand and turned to see Honey returning with a pair of limp jackrabbits held in his jaws. 

"Are those for me?"

Honey's tail wasn't built for wagging, but he did a full body wriggle that got the same idea across. He dropped the rabbits at Steve's feet and looked up at him. And then sat, held out one paw, laid down, rolled over, and put his paws over his eyes to play dead. After a second, one brown eye opened to look up at Steve.

Steve laughed and bent down to rub Honey's belly, which got him some appreciative whimpers and more wriggling. "I get the message. You're not a soldier. You don't take orders. How about we wait here for the others?" Both eyes closed, which Steve took for the closest to a yes he was going to get. He prepared the rabbits and had them spitted over a smokeless fire before Honey flipped over onto his feet, and stared alertly in the direction they'd come.

A white-fletched arrow arced through the air to impale a cactus. "Clint!" Steve protested, but he wasn't fast enough to retrieve the arrow before Honey bit it in half and stood over it, growling. Steve quickly grabbed the loose skin at the back of Honey's neck and held on as tightly as he could. "It's all right." He raised his voice. "Ok, guys, come out, but take it slow."

***

Honey sniffs and tilts his head, considering the familiarity of the approaching scents. These are mate's, too, he decides. They follow like kits learning to hunt. No meat smell, bad hunters, smell tired in the people way, with salt-sticky skin. Suddenly Honey wants to taste that salt. He whines and twists inside his loose-fitting skin, pulling away from his mate to meet the people-kits. Mate makes loud noise and runs after Honey. He runs faster, trilling as he becomes more excited. He can't make up his mind which one smells tastiest, and before he can get close enough to sort out all the smells they scatter like a flock of birds and then mate lands on top of him, driving all the air out of his lungs. He wriggles and trills louder. Mate and mate's kits make a lot of noise, and this is all too confusing and maybe it would be better not to be Honey right now.

***

"It's all right, I've got him," Steve said, lying full length on top of Honey, holding on with arms and legs before he found himself holding loose handfuls of fur and sprawled over Tony.

"Oof," Tony said. "This would be more fun if you were naked." He turned his head and spat out teeth. "God, what have I been eating. Wait, don't tell me."

Shocked, Steve got off of Tony. "Are you all right?"

"Sure, fine, never better." Tony reached into his mouth, wriggled a tooth loose and tossed it away. He blinked at Steve's expression. "Oh, hey, that happens every time. The good part is that I get a new set of teeth and coat of fur each time. Look ma, no cavities! The bad part is that I lose about five pounds. Conservation of Mass only applies to a closed system, you know." Tony settled on his back and looked at the Commandos, who had gathered around to frankly stare. "Wow. This is like being locked in a candy store. Steeeeve, I am so randy you wouldn't believe it. I need one. No, I'm lying. I need everyone. That's all right with you, isn't it? You get the last ride."

Steve gulped. "Um. Sure." Ok, Steve knew this was going to happen, but honestly, the sex ed vids had been much more... organized... about the first family orgy, with the mating Alpha controlling things. But then, this is war. And also, it's Tony, who doesn't seem to have read any rule books. "Let's just set up camp and..."

Tony looked at him, all big, pleading eyes and pouting lip. "Please? Now, Steve, look, look how gorgeous they all are! And hey, this is mathematically perfect, three women and six men, so I could have all of them in three goes and then there'd be plenty of time for you to fuck me absolutely legless while they make camp, and I hope the rabbits don't burn." Tony was giving off so much arousal scent that Steve could barely think straight, and the Commandos were even more under Tony's thrall.

"All right. Just... remember we're on a mission," Steve said. "Stay alert." He had his pack off and was unbuttoning his shirt only a few seconds ahead of the others. 

"Nice, oh, nice," Tony said while spreading his legs, the slick already sliding down his thighs. He fondled his erection and grinned. "I'm so glad you're not fighting over me. There's enough of me to go around."

They combined their blankets in a sandy, pebble-less patch of ground. "Oh, certificates!" Pepper said and dug into her pack. "I have the master list, here." She offered it to Tony hopefully. He took the list, and gave it one sweeping glance for form's sake before handing it back to her.

"You have no idea how sexy I find efficiency." Tony stroked her arm, while glancing at Steve, who nodded. "I'd really, really, like to fuck you while I suck Phil and Happy rides my ass. How does that sound?" 

Pepper smiled. "That sounds wonderful."

Steve and the other six Commandos formed a protective cordon, spreading out far enough to watch for trouble while still remaining close enough to hear, and more importantly, smell what was happening with their Omega.

***

Tony kissed Pepper and Phil and Happy, quick, hungry tastes of lips and skin. He remembered how Honey wanted to lick the salt from them. He was so hot, so hungry, he wanted it all, and they were all so sweet, so perfect, so exactly what he needed that he's dazed and dizzy with it. He didn't know how it happened, but he was kneeling over Pepper, all pink and freckles and soft and firm and he was almost sorry that he was infertile while pregnant because she would make beautiful babies, but then, dry orgasms meant he could keep hard for as long as he was stimulated, and since he's got three sister-wives to satisfy, that was a very, very good thing. He was all scattershot thoughts, all good, all happy, so happy. He could smell the rest of his family nearby, all happy, so good, when he entered Pepper and she made a pleased noise and put her lovely small hands on his chest. He would have kissed her again but Phil's dick was in front of his face, such a lovely color, and smelled so good. He opened his mouth and greedily sucked, and yes, just as good and everything was close to being all right. He spread his legs, and there were big hands on his thighs, helping him balance and then Happy was in, and that was it. All hot and movement and pleasure.

It was so easy. He'd thought, when he bothered to think about it at all, that this sort of thing would be too complicated to be enjoyable, but it wasn't. It was all instinct and sensation and he was all surrounded by his family and safe and loved and so, so good. Smelled so good. Tasted so good. They were quick, they had to be, he was too gone to care, but his Alphas took care of him. Happy didn't try to knot. Wasn't supposed to, Tony thought, but still...Tony whined about that, but Steve would take care of him later. 

A few minutes, a few eons, later, Tony felt cold and realized that he wasn't fucking or being fucked anymore. He licked come from his lips and remembered he still had more sister-wives, brother-husbands, to enjoy. "Tasha, Thor and Clint," he said, stretching and breathing heavily before the next set of lips, and hands, arms and legs stroked and worshiped him while he preened and displayed himself. He was so deep in haze he couldn't see, but that didn't matter since they moved him into position, whispering words of praise and encouragement, and all he had to do was so simple, just give and take, touch and be touched, fill and be filled.

For the third round, he went deeper still, and discarded hearing as unnecessary. He knew he called Peggy, Rhodey, and Bucky, because he felt the names in his throat. And they obeyed the call, and he was so good, so good, for once not broken or wrong at all, just right. When they finished, hands gently moved him, stroking and soothing and he smiled, blind and deaf, opening his arms and legs for Steve. He knew Steve was coming to him. He didn't need any senses beyond the knowing inside.

He sighed happily as Steve's hands helped him get onto unsteady knees and brace himself properly, with his head down on his crossed arms. And there. He arched, fast and full wanting Steve deep and now and all the way. Yes. He drew a deep breath and pushed back to take Steve's knot. He was more tender in the deepest place than he'd expected. He must have made some sort of noise because Steve stroked his chest and kissed the back of his neck before he relaxed and let himself slip into a mindless trance where everything was love and forever.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically, notes on the care and feeding of your pregnant Omega on a camping trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it's short, am fighting my muse. she just wants to sleep. really, there's supposed to be action and plot advancement, but *yaaawwnn*... am falling asleep at keyboard.

Steve frowned when he got up later and tucked the blankets around Tony who was sleeping so heavily he didn't react. He was too thin. Steve could trace the shape of his collarbone and ribs much too distinctly. He didn't think he _could_ wake Tony, but he wanted to, to make him eat. And Tony was going to lose weight every time he shape-shifted? Steve dressed and called in the others to eat, sharing out the rabbit meat along with their usual dried rations and canteens of water. "We're going to have to forage more than I'd planned." No one objected; they all knew why.

Pepper spoke up, "We can get supplies from cities en route."

That was breaking one of their strongest rules. The Snakes had ways of knowing when people moved about in the cities. "We may have to risk it."

"Tasha and I can do it," Phil said. "No problem." 

"What about me?" Clint protested. The three of them had arrived at the base together. They never said how they'd found their way there, but the number of arrows Clint had tipped with Snake teeth had impressed even Fury. 

"You can hunt better than any of us," Natasha pointed out. 

"Yeah," Steve said, "That's our best option for now." He wasn't happy about it. "You guys, don't take any chances. Remember, we're going to have seven more Omegas under our wings on the way back." Steve could see how everyone reacted to that, eyes going fierce and heads high. "We're going to move fast, and look sharp. No Snake-baiting for fun-- I mean that, Thor. If we do see one, kill it quick, don't let it have a chance to report back."

Pepper got out a map. Phil and Natasha had a silent argument before she shrugged and nodded at the town he'd pointed at. Phil gave Pepper back the map. "Shall we return here?"

Steve shook his head. "No. We'll parallel your course at a distance and stop at nightfall." Natasha had excellent night vision and Phil's sense of direction was amazing, so he wasn't worried about them finding their way back. "Take nothing but your weapons and empty packs." They ate quickly and redistributed the contents of their packs so Natasha and Phil each had two empty ones. Tony slept through it all, including Steve wrestling the clothes back on him.

"Rope him onto my back." The average fit and conditioned male Alpha could handle a hundred and thirty pound pack without appreciably losing combat effectiveness, and while Tony's hundred and forty-five wasn't neatly packaged, he did instinctively shift in his sleep to keep balanced, rubbing his cheek against Steve's neck and smelling very relaxed and contented. Steve patted Tony's arm. "I've got you."

They fell into formation with Steve at the center, instead of his usual lead. Natasha and Phil broke off after a few minutes, and Clint sped up to go ahead to see what he could hunt. Steve ran easily; the warm weight and soft breathing at his back made him strong. He felt like he could take on the whole Snake flotilla. They had no idea what they'd got into when they attacked Earth. Maybe things would never be the same again, but as long as he had Tony and his family, Steve would show them why no one gets in the way of an Alpha in full protective mode. He stepped up the pace, checking that everyone was keeping up without difficulty. The women couldn't carry as much weight, but they were just as hardened to combat and marching as the men, and faster in short sprints. Tony's scent surrounded them, and they moved as one, more synched than even long training had made them, like a flock of birds or a school of fish. A flock of eagles. A school of sharks. Apex predators.

***

"Mmm," Tony mumbled. His bed was warm and moving. And smelled wonderful. He wasn't sure why it was vertical instead of horizontal, though. He went to scratch his chin and discovered that his hands wouldn't move. Further sleepy investigation proved that his hands and feet were tied, and there was also rope under his ass and around his chest. "Kinky." He considered going back to sleep again, but that would be rude to his bed partner. He sighed and rubbed his chin against the bed.

"Are you awake, Tony?" Steve's voice brought Tony fully around in seconds.

"I am now." Tony blinked and looked around as best he could. Judging from the light, it was late afternoon. He could see only a few of the Commandos running beside Steve who was carrying him piggyback, which... well, normally he'd be insulted, but it was nice and cozy, and he couldn't really complain about anything that brought him close to Steve. He scented more Commandos nearby. Not all, though. He was surprised that he could tell them apart by scent, and knew who was missing. Maybe there was some carryover from Honey. "Where are Tasha, Clint and Phil?"

"Foraging. We'll stop soon for the night and they'll meet us."

"Good. I'm just a little bit hungry." Tony felt like his stomach was trying to digest itself, but he wasn't going to whine about it. Bruce needed him. They had to hurry. "Maybe I'll go back to sleep." Steve stroked his arm and Tony dozed off again.

***

They stopped just before dusk on the banks of a tributary of the White River. Tony was glad to get off Steve's back and stretch his legs, and even happier to be able to wash up and tend his goatee. Steve hovered, which was also nice. The rest of the Commandos set up camp, but no one fully relaxed until the foragers returned, the three of them entering the campsite together, looking hot and dirty, and pleased with themselves, while laden under heavy burdens.

"Ok, Clint is now officially my second favorite," Tony announced when he saw Clint unwrap a raw deerhide to reveal what must be nearly a hundred pounds of meat. "I want the liver. You did bring the liver, didn't you?"

Clint grinned and held out a dripping hunk of meat. "Yeah, I had a hunch." Tony reached for it, but Steve intercepted it.

"Let Happy cook it first," Steve said as sternly as he could manage in the face of Tony's pouting. Fortunately, Phil and Natasha were unpacking their harvest and Tony was distracted by that.

"Pickles! Gimme!"

Thor inspected a jar of gherkins carefully before opening it. He took one out and ate it. "You know the rules. You have to wait until we're sure it's safe."

"Oh, come on, it's pickled! I'm going to starve to death surrounded by food!"

Natasha shook her head and handed Tony a small tin. "Here, occupy yourself by opening this."

"Cocoa powder! All right, you're my second favorite." Tony found his pack, pulled out a multitool and attacked the tin, while Steve watched and resisted the urge to take the sharp instrument away from him.

Happy looked up from sorting the supplies Natasha and Coulson had brought. "Tony, don't eat all the cocoa, I think I can make cookies."

Tony stopped with a spoonful of cocoa halfway to his mouth. "Happy is DEFINITELY my second favorite."

Steve laughed.

***

Steve was slightly concerned by how much Tony managed to eat. He even outdid Thor before he finally heaved a satisfied sigh and cuddled up next to Steve and fell asleep again without even demanding sex. "He's had a long day," he said softly while stroking Tony's hair.

"We made good time," Rhodey remarked. "Better than I expected." His unspoken suggestion was that they take it easier tomorrow.

"Yeah. And we need to do better." As Tony's pregnancy advances the physical demands on his resources would increase. "Can you and Bucky come up with a better way to carry him? I don't want him shape-shifting unless we're in danger."

"Yeah. Yeah, we can do that. Gimme that hide, Clint."

Steve lay down, curled protectively around Tony, and watched Bucky and Rhodey work on the hide until he fell asleep.

***


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Commandos encounter a Snake.

"No, you cannot shift to Honey," Steve told Tony as he examined the Omega-carrier by dawn light. Buckles had been cannibalized from packs and the deer legs turned into support straps for Tony's arms and legs. It had been quick-cured with salt and rolled and re-rolled until it was as supple as a rawhide could get, which wasn't very, but they'd padded it with dried grass and lined it with the softest of the blankets to compensate. "Good job," he said to Bucky and Rhodey.

"You might need him," Tony said. "We'll be getting into Snake territory today, won't we?"

"Yeah." Steve ruffled Tony's hair. "Which is why we're staying together today and you know that's a problem for Honey."

"Oh, that." Tony leaned into Steve's petting. "Not so much, really. Yesterday, he wasn't attacking. He wanted to lick everyone, all over." Tony wriggled. "You all smell so good. Really, really good." Tony licked his lips and then bit the lower one. "Do we have time for sex? I mean, I know we have to hurry to save Bruce and the others, but I could really, really use a little help here."

"You should eat." It wasn't easy saying no, or even 'wait', when Tony was looking at him like that, all wide-eyed and... Omega... but Steve's got to be responsible, and Tony certainly won't be.

"Plleeeease? Just a couple, to take the edge off, and then you?" Tony pulled off his shirt and ran his hand over his own nipples. "I want Happy and Natasha and Clint for breakfast."

The scent of slick, of want and need, was strong. Steve gave in to necessity and kissed Tony. "Second favorites?"

"I believe in rewarding virtue." Tony giggled, and kicked off his pants. "And I've been very good, haven't I?"

Taking into consideration what a spoiled brat he was, Steve had to agree that Tony had been very good. "All right, but I'm not going to knot. You always fall asleep, and I want you to eat breakfast before we start."

"You drive a hard bargain." Then Tony grinned. "Can I ride Thor today? The view has got to be great from up there."

Steve laughed. Across the campsite, Thor gave Tony a thumbs' up.

***

This time Tony stayed awake after sex long enough to wash, dress himself, down a respectable size meal and cooperate as he was loaded into the carrier, but zonked out immediately after that. Thor took center position with pride. Steve was relieved that watching Tony cuddling on Thor's back didn't make him feel jealous, or possessive. Sometimes instincts took a darker turn. Even though he knew Tony would never let anyone else knot with him, would never carry anyone else's children, there was a small part of him that wanted every touch and smile for himself. It wasn't anything to be ashamed of, so long as he kept it under control. And that wasn't difficult with Tony's contented scent helping balance them all.

They ran well for hours, breathing easily, with Natasha, Peggy and Pepper scouting ahead, Phil and Clint to either side. Steve was pondering the wisdom of stopping for a brief break when he caught sight of Pepper returning at full speed, leaping over obstacles with flying grace. Before she came within earshot, she made the hand signal for 'Snake' to confirm what Steve suspected. The Commandos ran to meet her. "Can we go around?" Steve asked.

"Probably, it's just one Snake, doing something with a herd of turbits. There's an open Spider nearby, so the Snake might leave at any moment."

They'd been talking quietly, so that probably wasn't what woke Tony. More likely it was Thor's sudden halt. "Snake?" Tony said, high-pitched and sharp.

"Yeah," Steve said evenly, trying not to react to Tony's burst of fear-scent. "But we're going to avoid it."

"Let me down! Let me down, now!" Tony was struggling, reaching around Thor, trying to get at the buckles. 

"No! Tony, no!" Steve tried to calm Tony with his touch and for a moment he thought it was working, thought Tony was stretching up to press against his hands. And then Tony growled and bit through the straps and fell to the ground, tangled in the deer skin, already elongating and growing fur.

"Honey!" Steve grabbed, and came away with a handful of fur as Honey twisted, scrambled free of the tattered hide and took off in a full, awkward looking gallop in the direction Pepper had come. His head was up and his nostrils flared. He had the scent.

Steve didn't waste time giving orders. There wasn't any need of it. The only thing they could do was follow their Omega. Peggy and Natasha met them halfway, and swung immediately around. 

Honey reached the Snake first, and charged it, running through the startled herd of turbits- running _on_ some of them, while screaming a loud wailing cry like a lost bear cub. The Snake spread its hood, blood red eyes glittering in what was probably the Snake equivalent of shock before it dropped the tools it was holding in its tentacles and drew weapons from one of the belts around its body. It was a mid-size Snake, probably around twelve feet long. The supporting tail coiled beneath it and it reared up, nearly eight feet tall. Then it lunged for Honey, poison-dripping fangs glinting in the sunlight.

Steve made a noise and pulled his shield off his back, throwing it without pausing for thought. It struck the Snake solidly, driving it back with a horrible sound of crushed cartilage. It thrashed, firing its weapons randomly. Thor threw his warhammer, breaking the tentacles on the right side a bare second before a flurry of knives from Phil, Natasha and Bucky severed the left side limbs. It tried to rear up and strike, hissing furiously, but Clint put a stop to that with two arrows sunk fletching deep in its eyes to destroy its brain. The tail coiled and uncoiled, writhing in its death throes. The turbits waddled off as fast as they could.

Honey darted in and began chewing on the Snake. He held down the writhing body and gulped down scales, flesh and bone indiscriminately. He lifted his bloody muzzle, licked his lips and blinked at Steve before resuming his meal.

Steve looked around at the Commandos, all wild-eyed and hyper-alert. "Ok. Everyone all right?" There was something to be said for a surprise attack, no one had anything more serious to report than scratches from their headlong rush. "Honey?" Steve approached cautiously, but Honey ignored him, intent on eating. 

He looked around and saw the dull black finish of a Spider. "Phil, Peggy, see if there's anything useful in that Spider, then put it out of commission." He regretted that they couldn't use the vehicle themselves, but unless you had a dozen tentacles and a long tail, there was no way of controlling the walkers.

"Lunch break?" Happy asked, looking at Honey.

"Might as well," Steve said. It was patently obvious they weren't going anywhere any time soon.

Happy went over to the Snake which was now only twitching. Honey gave a brief body-wriggle of acknowledgment, but made no objection to Happy cutting off Snake-steaks or to Bucky peeling off enough Snakeskin to make a new Omega-carrier. Clint knocked out the Snake's teeth and wrapped them up carefully. 

As it turned out, Snake coated in corn meal and fried in Crisco was pretty good.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony plays with a Spider, a few more weeks pass, they're probably only a chapter away from the other Omegas.

Tony woke up in a pile of blankets, gradually. Before he was fully awake he recognized Steve was next to him, stroking his cheek with the back of one finger. Tony opened his eyes lazily and smiled up at Steve. "Hey. Wow, I'm so full I can barely move. I guess we'll have sex later."

"Tony."

"Uh oh. What? What did I do wrong? That's a definite 'did something wrong' voice." Tony sat up and looked around. The Commandos were all packed up and ready to go, but instead of his usual pack Rhodey was wearing a shiny green Snakeskin Omega-carrier. The stripped bones of a Snake lay just beyond the circle of Commandos who were all looking at Tony. "Um. Oh. Turns out Honey really hates Snakes. And loves them for dinner."

"Is he going to go after every one we get near?" 

"Hate to say it, but yes. Unless he's not hungry, and as far as I can tell, he's _always_ hungry." Tony scratched his goatee, which wasn't getting the amount of care he normally gave it. "And even if he wasn't hungry, he likes killing things. But he's really, really good at that, so you don't need to worry about him. Much." Steve still smelled concerned, but concerned was better than angry.

'"Yeah," Steve said. "You're sure you can't... talk to him?"

"It doesn't seem to work that way. We get basic things across." Tony smiled. "He doesn't always get it exactly, but usually he's on the right page. He's decided that the Commandos are our kids. I think at least part of this was him trying to teach them how to hunt."

Steve was silent for a long moment, and then he offered Tony his hand. "We need to move on. The Snake didn't get off a message, but when the Spider doesn't return they're bound to come looking for it."

"That's right! There's a Spider! I've got to see it, Steve! No one ever brought one back to the base." Tony grabbed Steve's hand and bounced to his feet. "Really! It's really, really important! Where are my tools! Where's my pack!" 

"Tony! We don't have time!"

"STEEEEVE! Please! We have to make time! We know so little about their technology, anything I can find out would be important! Ten minutes!" Tony saw the edge of his pack beside the one Bucky was wearing. He ran over and grabbed it. "Fifteen minutes! Half an hour, tops!" Tony ran toward the Spider.

"Tony, no," Steve said, to Tony's back in a resigned tone of voice. Then he turned to the Commandos. "Spread out, make sure I get at least fifteen minutes warning of any Snake activity. Rhodey, you stay here."

***

"I could cry," Tony said while prying off instrument covers. "What I could learn if I had proper equipment and a few weeks... I know, I know," Tony cut off Steve's attempted protest. "Pull that, will you?" 

Steve grabbed the metal plate and yanked it free, releasing a little frustration in the process. "Hurry it up. It doesn't matter what you learn if we don't get back to use it."

"Of course it matters," Tony said, muffled around the wrench he was holding between his teeth, so it came out more like, "Owf orf i atters." He crawled inside the space under the instrument panel and began cutting wires and bashing the wrench at recalcitrant bits. "If I can just get the comm system and navigation out in one..." There was a loud crunch. "Well, in several largish pieces..."

"Get out."

"Don't get all Alpha on me now, Steve!" Tony yelped when Steve tugged on his ankles. "All right, all right, no need to bully." Tony backed out and looked up at Steve. "What?"

Steve reached in and gripped the ...whatever it was... that Tony had been working on for ten minutes. The muscles stood out in his arms and back as he heaved. He fell backward, landing on the ground beneath the Spider, holding something complicated and alien to his chest. Tony looked down at him.

"My hero." Tony grinned at Steve.

***

Tony climbed into the Snakeskin carrier on Rhodey's back once he'd wrapped up the Spider components and made them into bundles for easier carrying. He wrinkled up his nose. "This really stinks."

"Maybe it'll help," Rhodey said as he shifted to settle the weight more comfortably. "If Honey smells Snake all around he won't be able to tell when there's one nearby."

"That's... really quite clever. It might even work." Tony patted Rhodey on the shoulder. "Onward, faithful steed!"

Rhodey laughed and took central place as the Commandos regrouped into formation.

***

They had several days of relatively uneventful travel. There were far fewer Snakes than usual, which meant the others from the base were succeeding in drawing fire away from them. Steve wasn't entirely happy about that. It felt wrong to let others risk their lives---more than that, an all-out attack with untrained forces meant the casualties would be high. Tony grew quieter every day, undoubtedly picking up from Steve. Between the bond, and his heightened awareness due to the pregnancy, and the carryover from his shape-shifter's senses, Tony had no choice in the matter. 

On the third day after the Snake encounter, Steve sat down with Tony while they ate. Tony was picking at the food in contrast to his usual voracious appetite. "Hey. What's wrong? You don't like dried apple pie?" Steve put an arm around Tony's shoulders.

Tony looked up, and blinked. "Oh. No, it's great." He looked over at Happy, who did most of the cooking. "It's delicious, Happy, thanks!"

"So?" Steve pressed. Tony being quiet was so unnatural it was beginning to make everyone nervous. "What is it, then?"

Tony sighed and had a couple more bites of pie, before he pushed the plate aside. "I just keep thinking."

"I've noticed that." Steve ruffled Tony's hair, but Tony ignored the opportunity to make a smart remark.

"Dad's not a soldier."

"Yeah, but he's smart. He'll be fine. Heck, he's probably dismantled a Spider of his own and the two of you can compare notes when we return to base."

Tony smiled. "You think so?"

"Sure. And you know, Fury's got his back. I've seen Fury fight Snakes. They don't stand a chance."

Tony grinned and then kissed Steve. So there was a delay before they resumed marching, but it was good for morale.

***

"I'm beginning to forget what my legs are for," Tony said, sulkily a week later as Happy knelt in front of him with the Omega carrier open.

"It's the only way you can keep up with us, you know that," Steve said.

"No, it's not." Tony crossed his arms and moved away from Happy. "Honey..."

"Is easily distracted, and we're nearing a Snake outpost," Steve said. "We can get by, if we're careful, but you know he wouldn't be."

Tony shrugged and tapped his chest. "There's one thing you're forgetting. I'm going to have to shift anyway, in a few days at most, to clear the poison. It'll be more dangerous then, won't it?"

Steve considered his mental map, and the scouting reports. In three days they'd be mid-point between this outpost and another, even larger. "Yes. All right. But we do this as a team. He's going to attack as soon as you change, isn't he?"

"I think so. I've been confusing him with the scent of the carrier, but it doesn't smell as strongly now, and his senses are a lot more acute than mine so... yeah."

"Gear up!" Steve ordered. The Commandos tightened their battle harnesses and took weapons in hand. "Try to keep him near us."

"Yeah. So long as we're all headed for Snakes, he'll do that." Tony took off his clothes. "As Fury would say, let's go kick Snake-ass." He gave Steve one last grin, then fell to his hands and knees, stretching out into Honey.

Honey shook himself, and stood on his hind legs. Steve gave him a hug, feeling stiff whiskers rub against his face for a moment before Honey drew in a deep breath and growled. "Stay with us!" Steve ordered, and he thought Honey winked at him, but it was hard to tell. And then they were all running, with Steve and Honey at the point, like a spear-head, sharp and forged for one purpose. He almost felt sorry for the Snakes. Almost.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ow, Snaaaaake.

Honey smells many Tastes Good/Fun to Kill things. There are other things to kill and eat, of course, but Snakes are better than anything because they are a danger to his family and they are trying to breed in his territory. Where ever he is, is his territory. Snakes invade. He will kill them all. Eat them all. 

Mate and kits run well, smell strong, the hunt is good. Snake smell so thick. Honey screams a war cry as family bursts into nest of Snakes and leaps for the nearest one. No time to dance and play, just rip and claw, bite and leap, hot Snake-blood in his mouth, weaken biggest Snake, leave for kits, go for next Snake. Keep mates and kits in sight, show them how to bite, to tear. Snake trying to bite Mate. NO. That Burns. BITE Snake. Snakes down. All Snakes down. Time to eat.

***

Steve looked around, catching his breath. For a moment he thought he'd had it, one of the Snakes was lunging right for him just as he'd thrown his shield and had no room to maneuver. Honey had appeared between them and climbed straight up the Snake's face, doing serious damage with claws and teeth before he went over to the back of the neck and severed the spine. Between the Spiders, the Snakes' still twitching corpses, and the debris of mysteriously purposed alien camp equipment, Steve couldn't see everyone. "Roll call!" Steve shouted, "Any injuries?" He was relieved when all nine Commandos responded and reported themselves in good condition. Honey was already gorging himself while perched on the biggest Snake.

"Ok, check out the Spiders, make sure no messages were sent." Steve turned to scan the camp for any signs of trouble. They wouldn't be able to move on until Honey ate his fill and reverted to Tony so it was even more important that they secure the site than if they were only making sure they wouldn't be pursued. The Snakes were poor trackers, seeming to rely on their machinery more than their senses, so he was mainly concerned that anything that looked as if it _could_ send a signal _couldn't_. Since the surest, quickest way to do that was to smash hell out of anything unknown, he wanted to have that taken care of before Tony could see and be upset by the loss of new 'toys'.

He had his arm raised to point out a tool belt around one of the Snakes when his blue light flickered. Steve felt as if he'd been punched in the gut. "Tony!" he shouted and leapt over everything in his way, pushing past startled Commandos just in time to catch Honey's limp body falling from the Snake, legs quivering. "Oh, god, he's been bitten!" 

The other Commandos were there in seconds, touching Steve, touching Honey, have to see, have to scent, have to _know._ Pepper said, "Only one bite." She brushed the fur back on Honey's right foreleg, showing the punctures. Phil added, "His breathing isn't bad." Steve nodded as if any of that mattered. There was no treatment for Snake-bite. There'd never been a chance to develop an antivenin. Either you died in screaming agony, or you slipped into a coma and died in your sleep. His light flickered blue, pale blue, in time with Honey's.

Steve should give orders. He should make decisions. Without... without Tony the mission had changed. They wouldn't be able to bring back the other Omegas, but they could still get the information, the device. He picked up Honey and moved away from the Snake. He didn't need to look to see the Commandos laying out blankets, starting a fire, putting a pan of water on to boil, making this last effort to care for their Omega. He nodded mute acknowledgment and laid Honey down on the blankets.

Bucky touched his shoulder. "Steve?"

"Yeah." Steve didn't look up or stop stroking's Honey's fur. "I think... you should take command. Until it's over. I'm not... I can't. Right now." When they returned to base, he was going to find Howard and let him do whatever he wanted to Steve. And be glad of it. He didn't want to live with his blue light faded to white. But first he was going to complete the mission that Tony died for. Steve had no idea how much time passed while the Commandos stood guard over them, while they came, one by one, to touch Steve, to touch Honey, to change the cloths on the Snakebite. 

It must have been at least an hour later that Steve noticed Honey's eyes were open, and the shivering had stopped. He had hoped that Tony would return at the last, but it was probably fitting that his last sight of his bondmate should be in this form, as he was when Steve first met him. He stroked the still warm, silky soft fur, and gently closed the eyelids. He sighed. Honey's eyes opened again. And then Honey sneezed and squirmed up to lick him, a wet, sticky stripe across his cheek, before grunting and staggering over to the nearest snake to resume eating.

"What?" Steve got to his feet before thinking to check his wrist. The blue shone as bright and steady as ever.

Phil stood next to Steve. "Oh. That's right. Tony said this shape cleanses his body of toxins. I'm sorry I didn't think of it earlier, Steve."

"No. That's. Yeah. It's all right." Steve took a deep breath. "What are you all standing around for? We're going to need more Omega carriers. Get skinning those Snakes!"

***

This time, when Tony reverted back to human he fell asleep immediately. Steve took him in a new carrier, and the Commandos ran through the rest of the day and the night to get around several Snake encampments, only stopping at dawn.

"Um," Tony said when Steve finally let him get down after the camp was set up and the perimeter secure. "Sorry?"

Steve tried to frown at him but Tony was shamelessly using every ounce of Omega-cute and adorable. Sometimes Steve swore the man could lengthen his eyelashes at will, like a cartoon baby bunny. Steve sighed and put his arms around Tony. "You're not allowed to die, you know that?"

"Neither are you." Tony hugged him tightly. "If that Snake had bitten you instead of me..."

"I've had the serum, I heal fast. I would have been all right," Steve said. Tony tilted his head back to give Steve a disbelieving stare. "You're not expendable, Tony."

"Neither are you," Tony repeated. "I would... I never thought I'd have a bondmate, Steve. I wouldn't want to go on without you."

Steve brought one hand back between them and pressed it to Tony's belly, still flat, but holding the promise of new life. "If anything happens to me, you have the Commandos to take care of you and our child. I expect you to make sure our baby grows up knowing you love him."

"Or her." Tony kissed Steve. "You know, you are really sexy when you're all serious and sweaty." Tony grinned. "And I've been bumping around on your back forever, smelling how delicious you are." Tony did a little wriggle-step. "Are you tired? Really tired?"

Five minutes ago, Steve would have sworn he'd drop to the ground and be asleep before he hit. "I think I just got my second wind." Steve led Tony to the nest the Commandos had set up for them. He wasn't going to share Tony this time.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony finds Bruce. YAY.

As they drew closer to their destination the Snake outposts became fewer, until they'd gone a week without even the faintest hint of Snake in the wind. Tony deliberately shifted to Honey and back again the day they arrived within view of the dish array, just to use Honey's senses to make absolutely certain before they tried to contact the Omegas. "All clear," Tony said, bouncing from foot to foot, in his eagerness to go on. "Just as I said it would be, there's nothing here to attract the Snakes, it's too barren even for turbits."

"The Snakes might have noticed the gigantic metal dishes," Steve said dryly.

"Yeah, noticed, but hey, why would they _care_? It's not as if the dishes can be weaponized... although..." Tony stopped bouncing and looked thoughtful. "With enough power and modification of...yeah...no, that might work, but... I need to talk to Bruce. Let's go get him."

Steve put his hand on Tony's arm. "I don't like you going on alone."

"I don't like it, either." Tony turned to wrap his arms around Steve. "but I'm not frightened. Bruce would never hurt me. He'd never hurt anyone. It'll be fine."

"They've been here a long time, isolated under conditions that would be stressful for anyone. Your friend might have changed. He might not be in charge, even. Be careful."

Tony gave Steve a mock-affronted look. "When am I not careful? Don't answer that." He kissed Steve. "Tell me to go now, before I change my mind."

"Go now, Tony," Steve said with a smile. "We'll be watching."

Tony nodded and started walking away from the Commandos and towards the nearest buildings- a small museum, theater and a gift shop- the only concessions made to tourism. Not many people chose to travel to the high desert just to rubberneck at tech. Tony had been here once with Bruce. They'd been interested in different scientific fields, with Bruce being fascinated by the idea of contacting extra-terrestrials while Tony loved things that went fast, or went bang (preferably both), so they'd visited both White Sands and The Very Large Array on a post-graduate holiday before embarking on separate careers. Bruce had joined CETI while Tony had joined his father's corporation in the R&D section. They corresponded fairly regularly up until the Snakes attacked. Bruce always lived in Omega enclaves so Tony had been sure he'd died in that first horrific wave of devastation.

He wondered how Bruce had wound up hiding out at the VLA. Maybe because it had a backwards sort of relation to CETI, which was intended to reach out to aliens, send them messages of the 'hello, we're alive and friendly and we think we're pretty smart' sort. Which meant mainly math, because really, did you want to know anyone who couldn't recite pi in their sleep?

Tony reached the first building. "Hello? Anyone home? Bruce, it's me, Tony!" He waited a few seconds, then cautiously tried the door. It opened and he looked into a dim and dusty room, shelves still holding assorted souvenirs. There were no footprints in the dust as far as he could see. He was tempted to go in, but then Steve wouldn't be able to see him and he had sorta, kinda promised not to do that. Steve's protective instincts were probably already putting him on edge, and while it might be fun, glorious even, for Tony to see Steve in full protective Alpha rage, it would terrify Bruce. So Tony left the door open and tried the other visitor center buildings, to the same result.

"Ok, that was too easy, I guess." Tony headed for the official buildings, the assembly sheds and other on-site stuff. It had never been very hospitable, but he remembered the behind the scenes tour, and knew there was more behind, or maybe even _under_ the visible elements. It would have made sense to put some of the facility underground, wouldn't it? Maybe? Tony kept trudging on. His shoes were wearing thin, and the ground was hot under his feet, so he walked a little faster, doing a bit of a dance step to cool off his soles. "Hellloooooooo, guys, come on out!" He hoped nothing had happened to them. He couldn't bring along a receiver so he didn't even know if they were still transmitting the interference message. Which could have been set on automatic. They could all be dead. Could all have been dead before Tony left the base.

No. Tony was just letting himself panic. He wasn't used to being this alone, that was the problem. He could barely even scent Steve at this distance. He stopped suddenly, staring at a cairn of stones. Was that large enough to cover a body? He swallowed hard and then went on, slower. Scratched in the hard-baked ground by the cairn was a broken circle set on two short feet- the Omega symbol. Anyone would investigate, even if only to give the Omega a proper burial. He looked at the stones and refused to touch them. Someone had piled those rocks.

"Hey! Guys! Look, you called us! You know it's rude to stand up your date!" Tony walked around the cairn, trying to access Honey's senses without actually 'flipping the switch' and going furry. He tilted his head. Did he hear something? Yes. A faint sound coming from... oh, there. A pipe, painted to match the bleached pale ground, sticking up near a post supporting a chain link fence. He went over to the pipe and crouched beside it to take a long sniff. Yes. Someone's down there, Omega and frightened. "Bruce?" Tony dug out a bag of dried blueberries from his pack and tossed several of them down the pipe, listening to them ping and rattle. "C'mon out. It's just me, and my family." He breathed as hard as he could down the pipe. If a pregnant Omega's scent didn't move them, nothing short of dynamite was going to pry them out of hiding.

"Tony?" the voice that ghosted up the pipe was thin and shaky, but still familiar.

"Yes! Bruce! It's me! C'mon up! My feet are killing me!" Tony threw up his hand in a victory sign, to let Steve and the Commandos know he'd found the Omegas. "I have blueberries!" He heard Bruce laugh.

***

The Omegas were a pathetic lot, scrawny and pale and reeking of long-term terror. Tony even felt sorry for Reed Richards, who was a huge pain in the ass, and smarter than Tony, which made him even more annoying. The Commandos stayed just within sight, shifting and circling to guard the perimeter. Tony could smell their frustrated concern, but he didn't even dare call in Steve. Not yet. First he had to reassure the Omegas with touch and scent. If they'd had time he would have tried to initiate a sex-ring to comfort them, but really, none of them were in shape to enjoy it, so he settled for kisses and caresses, and hell, even Reed wasn't really a bad fellow when he was crying into your shirt and shaking with relief. "It'll be fine," Tony kept telling them. "My family is very strong, they're all combat-veteran Alphas."

Bruce looked nervous. "Are they... are they nice?"

"Yes, Bruce, they really are. No one's even yelled at me, and you know how annoying I can be."

"Oh, that's... good," Bruce said, and then he looked down, hugging himself. Of all the Omegas, he was the only one who hadn't touched Tony. "I'm glad for you." He blinked behind his glasses. "Glad for all of you."

"Us, Bruce. We're all going back together." Tony didn't like the looks the other Omegas gave Bruce, or the way he curled even tighter on himself than he always did.

"I can't Tony. It's... this... everything's my fault."

"What everything?" Tony reached out and laid his hand on Bruce's shoulder, too thin, too bony, too cold. "Bruce? Whatever's wrong, I'll fix it."

"You can't. No one can. Just... take them, and the weapon, and go. I'm... staying here."

"No. You are not!" Tony gave up on patience and pulled Bruce into a hug. "You're my brother. You're coming with me. I'm going to need a babysitter who can tell really good stories."

Bruce was crying on Tony now, and making muffled noises about how he was a monster and he wished he was dead and it's all his fault because he _invited_ the Snakes to come.

"What? Don't be ridiculous." Tony rubbed Bruce's back. "Because of CETI? That's stupid, Bruce, honestly, you are making me ashamed of you."

"They... they followed the signals back to Earth!"

"CETI's been sending signals out since long before you joined them. Hell, we've filled space with enough electromagnetic signals to be a beacon to anyone who was listening for decades before CETI was conceived. Should we blame every ham radio operator in history?"

"You don't understand."

"Bruce, I don't _care_. I've come all this way to get you, and your little toy, so we can go home, get rid of the Snakes and get back to having fun. If you think the Snakes are your fault, then it's your responsibility to help us fight them, not curl up and die all alone, and make me miserable, which really wouldn't be good for the baby, you know." Tony grabbed Bruce's hand and pressed it against his belly. "C'mon, Bruce, don't you want to see my baby?"

It took a while longer, but Bruce finally gave in and agreed to return with them. The Alphas moved in quickly on Tony's signal, shared out meat (White Sands was conveniently now home to a herd of imported Oryx), packed up the weapon and data the Omegas had hidden in the cache, and explained the Omega carriers. Tony snuggled up in his carrier on Steve's back as an example and the rest were paired off fairly haphazardly once Pepper, Tasha and Peggy took the three lightest Omegas, Betty Ross, Peter Parker and Jane Foster. Bruce still looked nervous, looking at Thor as if he was a wild animal. But then, Thor was kinda intimidatingly huge. And he smelled... well, not aggressive, but nothing like as mellow as some of the other Alphas. Yeah, not good for Bruce. He really didn't need to be trapped next to an Alpha who frightened him. 

"Hey, Thor," Tony called, "why don't you take Loki? I want Happy to carry my friend Bruce." Thor nodded agreeably and changed with Happy.

"Hi," Happy said to Bruce. He grinned. "I used to be a chauffeur so I can promise you a smooth ride."

Bruce smiled hesitantly and then climbed into the carrier. Steve looked over his shoulder and caught Tony's glance at Bruce. "Happy," Steve said, "stay close to me." And then they started the return voyage.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve gets the shovel speech from Bruce, who is a very messed up Omega, but Tony loves him anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter dedicated to Fanfic+Beta who commented on Chapter 4 _I can't wait to see Bruce reacting to Tony...please, oh please, have Bruce give the shovel talk to Steve and the commandos, even better the Hulk giving his "Puny Alpha" routine!_

"People think Omegas can't kill," Bruce said softly. "They're wrong."

Steve looked up from the pack he was rummaging through. The camp was early evening quiet, with Alpha scouts stationed all around the perimeter, and the other Omegas gathered in a sort of puppy-pile around Tony. None of them had felt well enough for sex, but they'd relaxed while Tony and his family had their nightly orgy, relaxed enough to exchange a few chaste touches and kisses with the Alphas who carried them. All but Bruce. Happy had been very careful with him and eventually he'd stopped smelling frightened, but no matter how much Tony chattered at him, Bruce still had a core of something sad.

"I know," Steve said, moving slightly closer so they could talk without disturbing anyone else. "Tony planned to go Snake-hunting on his own."

That got a small smile from Bruce. "He would. But Snakes... anyone could kill them, they don't smell human, they don't make you feel what they feel."

Steve nodded. Omegas were hyper-sensitive to others, Alphas in particular. That was why many of them chose to live, or at least take holidays, in the Omega enclaves. "Happy isn't making you feel bad, is he? You could go with someone else tomorrow, if you like, maybe Phil? He's very calm."

Bruce shook his head. "No, Happy's all right. The problem isn't him. It's me. You see," Bruce said, leaning forward, his scent bitter with something Steve couldn't quite identify, not grief, not anger. "I'm a monster. I can kill people. I _have_ killed. I killed my father." Bruce sat back and smiled at Steve.

Steve coughed. He was pretty sure Bruce was telling the truth. But not all of it. "Why?"

Bruce looked away from Steve, to the center of the Omegas, where Tony slept, curled up tight. "He hated me. From the day I was born. Nothing I could do, nothing my mother could do, made him like me. She tried. She tried so hard to please him, to make him forget that her child was a monster. One day he... got carried away. She died and... he made it look like an accident. So... when he took me to her grave, to make me tell her that it was all my fault...there was a rock." Bruce spread his hands. "He was drunk and it really wasn't difficult. Even an eight year old can kill a stupid, weeping drunk."

Steve cleared his throat. "It wasn't your fault." He just couldn't fathom anyone treating any Omega so badly, but your own mate and child? How could you do that? No wonder Bruce was so shattered.

"That's what they said, but still. I know how to kill. And now, I know I won't wait until it's too late. When they took me to the boarding school, none of the other children wanted to be near me. They could smell what I was. The teachers tried to be kind, but they were uneasy, too. And then Tony came. He was... so small, and so sick, and... he walked right up to me and said, 'Do you want to be my brother?' He knew, and he didn't care, he wasn't afraid. So..." Bruce ran a hand through his hair. "So Tony is my brother, and I wouldn't just die for him. I'd kill for him. Anyone. Anyone who hurts Tony. Do you understand?" Bruce looked mildly at Steve. "I wouldn't want you not to understand. I'm a monster, and I'll kill you if you hurt Tony."

Steve blinked. "Yes, I understand." Of the two shovel speeches he'd got, this one was by far the more chilling. "But you won't have to, Tony's father has already promised to do it. I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself that way again."

Bruce considered it. "I'm sorry. I don't think I'd be willing to wait." Then he smiled at Steve. "Well, that was all I wanted to say. Good night." Bruce lay down and pulled a blanket over himself. 

After a minute Steve went back to looking in the pack, but he couldn't remember what he'd been searching for.

***

On the return trip Steve told the scouts to look for any of their people, to tell them they were returning. After a few days they began making contact, and while the Betas spread the word, the Alphas came in to see the Omegas and once they saw, they were desperate to stay with the Commandos. Steve couldn't really blame them, and the added foragers and fighters were useful as all but two of the Commandos were hindered by carrying Omegas. There had been a few bristling moments before Steve laid down the rules; no one but a Commando could carry an Omega, and the Omegas decided who they wanted to touch.

With other hands to hunt game and scrounge supplies and slaughter any Snakes within a day's march of their line, they moved much faster than Steve had anticipated. He had underestimated the Omega effect, which was understandable, because no one in civilized history had ever taken a group of Omegas into a combat zone. Oh, a few madmen had _tried_ , but they'd been torn to pieces by their own Alpha troops. Steve had thought the effect would be limited to morale boosting, and heightened senses as Tony had done for them, but within days the Alphas were all putting on muscle, lean, killer-swift muscle. It wasn't as startling as the Super Soldier Serum's effect on Steve had been, but it was undeniable. He supposed the necessity for protecting endangered Omegas had triggered a primitive response.The effect was most marked on those closest to the Omegas, so Steve ordered the outliers to rotate with the inner cadre on a regular basis so they could all keep up the pace.

Happy ran next to Steve so Tony and Bruce could talk while they rode. Tony hadn't said anything about it yet, but Steve was pretty sure he wanted to invite Bruce into the family. It made Steve a little uneasy, not just because Bruce was crazy, but because Bruce was... to put it kindly... careless of his own safety. If anything happened to Bruce then Tony would be heartbroken.

Tony kept up a constant stream of chatter, which Steve had given up on banning. If Tony was awake, he was talking, that was just how he was. And Steve kinda liked it that Tony wasn't a quiet, demure, traditional Omega.

"So, Brucie, you translated the Snake language?" Tony said, while shifting in the carrier to absent-mindedly pet the back of Steve's neck. "That's awesome. We've got a couple of their communicators... well... fairly large pieces of them... so we should be able to eavesdrop on them once we get back to base. Find out all their little slithery plans and go all honey badger on their non-existent asses." Tony didn't mention the weapon, which was hidden in a backpack Natasha was currently carrying. It wasn't that they didn't trust any of the other Alphas, but Steve gathered that they weren't sure how long it would take to figure it out, and whether it was actually _safe_ to use, so maybe they'd just bury it in the bunker somewhere in which case it was better not to raise hopes until they were back at the bunker and could talk with Fury about it. The techs, the Commandos and Fury were the only ones who knew this mission had been more than rescuing the stranded Omegas. 

"Honey badger?" Bruce asked. "I thought mongoose would be more traditional."

"Oh, yeah, you guys haven't met Honey yet." Tony paused a moment and then continued. "Well, it's a thing. I do. Sometimes. It looks a bit scary, but it's fine, really."

"Tony?" Bruce sounded alarmed. "What did you do?"

"Um. You know Erskine? Knew Erskine, I mean. He was... in an enclave. You know."

"I knew about him. He did biological research, he was trying to define the difference between Alpha types, try to come up with a drug-based cure for throwbacks to savage primitivism." 

Steve thought Bruce's casual tone was a little forced. A cure might have made his father sane. 

Tony went on blithely, as if he hadn't picked up Bruce's vibes. Maybe he hadn't. Tony was awfully self-centered. "Well, my father had been corresponding with him, and had his notes. And after the attack, we were flooded with reverted Alphas. So...he used the formula on them. It worked great on Steve. Not... so great on most of the others."

"And on you?" Bruce sounded horrified. "Your father used it on you?"

"No, no, not like that, Bruce. I screwed up, and I would have died without the rapid healing that's one of the side-effects. I thought I'd rather die, but I'm glad I didn't." Softly, "I'm a monster now, Bruce, but it's not so bad."

Steve interrupted, "You're not a monster. You're my bond-mate, and I love you just the way you are."

Tony ruffled Steve's hair. "You're my True Blue, even when I'm all hairy. That's one of the things I love about you. Shall I tell you the others?" And then Tony went into a long, highly detailed, description that would have served as a script for a pretty good Omega/Alpha porn flick. Steve grinned and kept running.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter: Bruce and Tony EMO and share guilty secrets.

They stopped for the night and the Omegas gathered in the center of the chosen campsite to stretch and rub each other in all the places that grew stiff and uncomfortable from being carried, while the Alphas set up the bedding, prepared a meal, and in general tried to impress them with their nest-making skills. Bruce stood a little way apart from everyone, as always. Tony went over to him with his hands held out. "C'mere, I want to cuddle and talk science."

Bruce smiled shyly and reached out to stroke Tony's belly. "So, you changed your mind about having children?"

"Mmm, that...that's a story. Long story. But it's good. Everything's fine." Tony rubbed the back of Bruce's neck. "You're wired up tight, Dumpling. You need loving?"

Bruce shook his head. "Just... hold me for a minute, Tony? Please."

"Sure. As long as you like. You always were my favorite teddy bear." Tony wrapped his arms around Bruce and hugged him tight. "Better?"

"Yeah." Bruce sighed and leaned his head on Tony's shoulder. "But... what's that on your chest? Are you wearing armor?" Bruce pulled out of the hug to lay his palm flat against Tony's shirt.

"Oh, that. That's part of the long story. It's why I needed the serum. You can peek, but don't tell the others, or they'll all want one," Tony said with a grin, shifting so his back was to the other Omegas. He began unbuttoning his thick, dark shirt. "Now, really, it's all right." Tony pulled his shirt open just far enough to reveal the arc reactor. "Isn't that the coolest thing you've ever seen?"

Bruce touched the arc reactor, running his hand lightly over it. "So, you miniaturized it and got it to work?" He leaned forward, fascinated. "What did you replace the palladium with?"

"Um." Tony pulled his shirt shut and started redoing the buttons. "Well, theoretically, there's a new element. It's going to revolutionize the world! Well, once we get rid of the Snakes, and kinda, like, actually produce the element."

"Tony, no. Why in God's name did you put a poisonous power source in your own body?" Bruce was still talking quietly, but he was getting more and more upset. "Are you _crazy?_ "

"Calm down, I'm fine. Like I said, I screwed up, and... and there was an explosion. Not a very big one, really. Wouldn't have mattered but I kinda got in the way, and just a little, hardly any worth speaking about..."

"Tony," Bruce said, and grabbed his shoulders.

"Ok, I got shrapnel near my heart and I needed a stable power source to keep it from moving. But you know how it is when you have a broken system that you can't just toss out in favor of a clean start? You put in a patch, and when that fubars, you put in another patch, and hope to counteract the worst of the mess. I took Erskine's serum for the healing, and... I got more than I bargained for. If I get upset, really upset, it triggers a metamorphosis, which, as a side-effect, seems to clear any toxins from my system. I've since learned how to do it at will." Tony looked at Bruce, pleadingly. "I have to do it at least once every two weeks because of the palladium, so you're going to see it before we get back to the base. I'll turn into an animal. Steve tells me I'm not ugly, but I don't know. He could just be saying that because he loves me."

Bruce blinked. "An animal?"

"Yeah. A me-sized honey badger, I'm told. He won't hurt you. He likes the Commandos because I like them, so he will love you. Even if he is ugly. So. There's my unpleasant little secret out in the open. Well. I wonder what Happy is cooking tonight?" Tony turned away from Bruce.

"Stop that, you idiot." Bruce moved in front of Tony. "I don't care what you look like. I've wiped your runny nose and cleaned up after you since you were four, and I never minded, you know that. What's a little fur on my trousers?"

Tony grinned and kissed Bruce. "So, we're good?"

"Yeah." Bruce ran a hand through his own hair, which didn't help. "I made worse mistakes than you. Tony, I... communicated with the Snakes, before they arrived."

"Yeah, you sorta hinted that."

"I... was... you know, so excited, and I was so pleased with myself for figuring out their language. They said they planned to bypass the Earth, but... I told them about us, about Earth, and... they decided to come here, to land here, because of me. It's all my fault, Tony."

Tony stared at Bruce. "No. I don't believe it. You've convinced yourself of that, because you always believe the worst of yourself. Be reasonable. Who'd start a war because someone said 'hey, it's a nice place to visit'? They had to have been studying Earth long before they contacted you."

Bruce said softly, "Maybe they were undecided and I was the last straw. However you look at it, everyone who died-- their blood is on my hands. We'd all be better off if I'd died as a child. Even me. I don't know if I can live with the guilt."

"Don't say that. I don't want to hear that. It doesn't _matter_ why they're here. They are here, and we need you to help us fight them! Don't you give up on us, Bruce!" Tony took Bruce's hands between his and held them tight. "I need you. Stay with me."

Bruce nodded. "You're right. If I die, it won't bring anyone back. I'll stay with you, Tony."


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony introduces Honey to the other Omegas. (Apologies for short chapter, am very sleepy.)

Steve looked at Tony, puzzled. They had made a rare find of a water hole large enough to bathe in, and he'd decided they could afford an unscheduled break for an hour or so to enjoy the luxury. The Omegas had gleefully stripped and taken advantage of the opportunity, all but Tony. Now that he thought back, Tony hadn't taken off his shirt for several days even during the nightly family orgies, and wasn't he overdue to shapeshift? Steve finished giving the orders for scout and guard posting before he went over to Tony who was sitting on the ground watching Bruce paddling about, hesitantly joining in a splashing game with the others.

"Hey," Tony said when Steve approached. He looked up and smiled. "See, Bruce is getting better! Don't you just want to cuddle him?"

"Yeah. I'd rather cuddle you, though." Steve stroked Tony's chest and saw him flinch. "What's wrong?" Without waiting for an answer he pulled up the shirt-- no, shirts-- despite the heat, Tony was wearing two shirts, both soaked dark with sweat.

"No, don't!" Tony protested, and Steve released the shirts, but not before seeing the swollen, discolored veins around the arc reactor.

"Tony."

Tony looked down at the ground. "I just... I didn't want to frighten them. Not yet. They've been through a lot. I thought maybe I'd just put it off a while until..."

"Until you got so sick you couldn't resist it and you changed without warning? And maybe someone got hurt? Maybe you?" Steve was very upset. "That's a great idea. Honestly, Tony, sometimes you're such an idiot." Steve kissed him. "Take off your clothes now. You're going to tell them and shift." Even puppydog eyes wasn't going to work this time. If he had to be stern to protect Tony from himself, he would be absolutely immovable.

"Steeeeve, please."

Steve crossed his arms. "Now, Tony."

"That's no fair. You're doing that Alpha thing." Tony fidgeted and tugged at the hem of his shirt and the cuffs. "One more day?"

"Now." Steve didn't like making Tony unhappy, but unhappy was worlds better than hurt. Tony's scent change had been enough to alert the Omegas. They were all turned toward them, watching and tense. "It'll be all right."

"Promise?"

"Yeah." Steve reached out to rub the back of Tony's neck. "I promise."

"Well, all right then." Tony took a deep breath, stood up and began stripping. Bruce came out of the water, followed closely by the other Omegas. 

"What's going on?" Bruce asked Tony, while giving Steve a narrow-eyed look. 

"You know that thing I told you about. Well, both things, really." Tony shrugged off his over-shirt and then pulled the other one off. "So, chest-baring time. Literally." It looked much worse than Steve had thought, black lines radiating outward in a jagged netting around the arc reactor.

Steve winced at the shock-scent coming from so many Omegas at once. Every Alpha within range turned in panic, weapons drawn and prepared to defend them. "Stand down," Steve snapped. He put his hand on Tony's shoulder, feeling the trembling of nervous tension. "There's no danger."

"What is that?" Reed asked. He sounded more curious than upset. Steve had noticed that Reed was pretty much of a cold fish for an Omega, so he wasn't surprised that the tall, skinny Omega was the first one to approach Tony. He reached out, but Bruce got between them and said, "Don't touch him. It's palladium powered."

"But that's toxic," the youngest Omega protested. Peter Parker was normally very shy, but fear for someone else was apparently enough to make him speak up.

Tony shook his head. "Yeah, but it's... under control." Tony looked at Steve. "I took Erskine's serum."

And then all of the Omegas were talking at once. Betty Ross and Jane Foster started arguing with Hank Pym about safety protocols while Loki was pointing at the reactor and shaking his head at Reed's explanations. Bruce was talking to Peter who had apparently seen some photos of Erskine's early failures and insisted there was a basic flaw that he would have figured out given a chance. Steve had no idea what to do; scientist Omegas were just plain weird. They were turning this into some sort of academic free-for-all.

Tony watched for a couple minutes, trying to interrupt at intervals, and finally he just kicked off his shoes and pulled off the rest of his clothes. "Guys! Yo, hey, GUYS!" Tony shouted and then shrugged when they continued to ignore him. "Ok, you know what? Class demonstration!" And then he stretched and shook himself out into Honey, and sneezed loudly in the resulting silence, which lasted about three seconds before Peter yelled, "Awesome!"


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki's unbalanced, but who could blame him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter dedicated to Thallys who commented on Chapter 13 _So, are we going to have some Omega group comfort sex ? Also, I'm curious, will characters like Loki be more like in mythology with the previous gaggle of kids ?_

Peter's shout broke the ice, and all the Omegas surged forward. Before Steve could warn them that Honey wasn't Tony in a fur coat, Honey rose to his hind feet, long-taloned front paws well on display, and made a soft whining noise that Steve recognized as one of confusion. "Stay back!" Steve shouted and grabbed the skin at the back of Honey's neck to slow him down if he decided to attack.

Loki said, "Oh, the poor thing, he's frightened." He pulled a faded blue rattle out of his pocket and shook it. Honey whined louder, and looked right at him, then he twisted out of Steve's grasp and bounced over to Loki to sniff at the rattle. Loki stroked his fur. "There, see, it's all right now, baby." Loki knelt and put his arms around Honey who grunted and sat down on the ground, pushing the rattle around with his nose.

"Um," Steve said into the stunned silence. "Yeah. That's Honey." He looked at Loki and then at the Omegas who were watching Loki singing a lullaby while trying to rock Honey. As Honey weighed more than the slender Omega, this wasn't exactly happening, but both of them seemed pleased by the attempt, so Steve wasn't complaining. "And Loki is..."

The Omegas looked among themselves and seemed to come to a silent consensus, electing Jane Foster to speak for them. She said, "Children and science labs don't mix, so most of us put off having them. Loki didn't want to wait. He always said he wanted a big house, a house with many windows, and a child at every window watching for him to come home. Until he could afford the house, Loki's grandparents raised his children in an Omega enclave, and he'd visit every weekend and holiday. All seven of his children were in the enclave when it was destroyed."

Steve looked at Loki, who was curling up against Honey with his eyes shut, while he continued to softly sing. Honey licked Loki's cheek. Steve sighed. "Is he like this often?" He was already considering assigning extra Alphas to watch over Loki.

"No, usually he's just really quiet. I think this is the most I've heard him speak in months. Maybe it's a good sign?"

"I'm sure it is." Steve had been expecting the Omegas to be fragile, traumatized by experiences that no Omega should ever have to endure, but he'd kept pushing the thought to the back of his mind because he had no plans to deal with the problem. He wasn't a therapist. He'd just have to follow his instincts, which right now were telling him to keep the Omegas as calm as possible, even if it meant lying to them. He waved to Happy. "Let's have a meal here, Happy."

"Sure thing, boss."

***

So many sad smells. Honey isn't sure at first why, then he smells baby on the little noisy toy. Faint, faint scent. The other one in his head knows that the baby is gone. Many babies gone. And then Honey realizes he's growing a baby of his own. What if the Snakes come for his baby when he's not there, the way the other tells him they did for the saddest one's babies? He needs a safe place for his babies. They're going back to the big underground nest, which is good, but what about now? 

Other tries to tell him that baby is safe now, but Honey knows better. Safe is underground. Mate and mate's kits are good fighters, but not these new ones. They are sad, and confused, especially this one who smells tired and sick. He licks tired, sick one before he moves away and finds a good hard patch of ground and starts digging. Safe is underground. Claws dig deep, it feels good in his shoulders. He throws the rock and dirt under his belly, then kicks with his back legs. Sad ones have no claws, he'll make safe places for them, too.

***

Steve had no idea that Honey could actually _burrow_ even after seeing him dig up ground-dwelling creatures. Before Happy had a pot of water boiling, Honey was completely inside the tunnel he was digging. Steve leaned down to look inside and got a face full of dirt. He frowned, trying to figure out what had brought on this behavior. Something to do with Loki? Probably. Well, there was nothing to do except let the smell of Happy's cooking bring Honey back out. 

"Hey, Happy, make those [ cookies](http://allrecipes.com/recipe/old-german-honey-cookies/) again, will you? You know, the ones with ginger and honey?" If that didn't draw Honey out, nothing would.

***

Honey smooths out a nesting chamber once the tunnel is three times his body length, then he wriggles around and emerges to nudge saddest one over to the burrow. Saddest one does not come. Honey nudges harder. Still not coming. Mate gets noisy, other non-fighters get upset. This is not helping. Honey growls and tugs at saddest one's leg while backing up down the burrow. Mate jumps on top of Honey, other non-fighters jump on top of Honey, saddest one picks up a stick and starts hitting _Mate_! Other voice is shouting in Honey's head, and really, this isn't fun at all. Time to be not-Honey.

***

"Ow," Tony said from the bottom of the pile of struggling Omegas, "hey! Baby on board, here! Get off!"

Steve immediately braced himself over Tony, taking all the weight on his own back. "Are you all right, Tony?"

"Sure, fine." Tony sneezed and spit out honey badger teeth. "It's not as if I'm claustrophobic, or anything, but hey, guys, usually when I'm on the bottom, it's a lot more fun than this."

It took a minute to untangle everyone, and Steve had to pick Tony up and look him all over before he was satisfied that no harm was done. "Ok, Tony, what was that all about, do you know? What was Honey trying to do?" 

"Well," Tony said, while raking dirt out of his hair, "I got the general impression he was trying to protect Loki by making him a safe place."

"There are no safe places," Loki said, softly. He had picked up the rattle and was turning it over and over again in his hands.

"There will be," Tony said. "Once we get back to the base, and figure out...you know... we'll kill all the Snakes, and it'll be safe."

Reed grumbled something about genocide, but Betty gave him a light smack at the back of his head and he shut up. Loki either hadn't heard Reed, or chose to ignore him, because he smiled at Tony. "I'd like that." He reached out to pat Tony on the arm. "Do you have names for your baby? I'm very good at naming babies."

"Well, no, not yet," Tony said, grasping Loki's arm and pulling his hand down to touch Tony's belly. "I'm still in the fun part of being pregnant, and haven't thought about it."

"Oh, you should." Loki stroked Tony's belly gently. "You should be talking to your baby now, so they'll know you love them. My babies are lost, but they know I loved them."

"Yeah," Tony said. He put his arms around Loki. "They knew." Tony pulled Loki close and made a face over Loki's shoulder, which was apparently some sort of secret Omega code, because all the Omegas closed in around them, touching Loki and Tony softly with their hands and their lips, murmuring reassurances.

Steve got out of the way, feeling a little awed when he realized they were going to have an all-Omega orgy. Alphas seldom witnessed that. It wasn't as if it was forbidden, just that it was something that was... well, a bit like a family bond, except that, being Omegas they didn't expect to stay together exclusively, couldn't really, because there were never enough of them to keep down Alpha tensions as it was and society would have considered them selfish. It smelled different, without the harshness of Alpha scent, and they were quieter, maybe out of habit, maybe just because they liked it that way. It didn't arouse him, or make him jealous. It just... was beautiful, and comforting and reassuring. Like seeing that so long as they had the possibility of this, then the world wasn't lost, there was still hope.

All the Alphas were silent, watching. 

Happy burned the stew a little, but no one blamed him.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve brings his folks back home safely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate Comcast. I keep losing the 'net & when it's down I'm so annoyed I can't concentrate on writing, so when it DOES come back for a little while, I have nothing to post. Drat you, Comcast. I SHALL PERSEVERE.

Steve didn't like to say it-- he didn't believe in jinxes, but he definitely believed in morale-- but things had been too quiet the last week. Fury's plan to clear out the Snakes couldn't have been that effective, could it? Sure, the Snakes on patrols and in temporary camps weren't heavily armed and as the Commandos had proved, were vulnerable to surprise attacks. But some of them had to have managed a message back to one of the mother ships. Why was there so little opposition on their return to base?

He tried to keep his unease from the others, but it was impossible to hide from Tony, of course. There was enough general tension-scent to disguise it from everyone else, but Tony was his bondmate; he didn't need scent-cues. At least Tony had the good sense not to mention it in front of the others, instead waiting until they were on the move again, with Tony settled against his back, and Tony's rather scuffy beard scratching against his neck. "What is it?" Tony asked, a bare whisper in his ear.

Steve replied nearly as softly, "Nothing I can put my finger on. Just... I have a feeling the Snakes are up to something." Tony hummed an understanding sort of noise and cuddled a little closer.

"It'll be all right. We're almost home," Tony said and then he sighed. "It'll be nice to have a bed again." He yawned, a long, audible huff of breath against Steve's neck.

Steve laughed softly. "You don't seem to have a problem sleeping on my back."

"I wasn't really intending to use it for sleeping, Sweet Potato. Mmm, just think of it. No rocks. No bugs. No itchy plants. Just you and me and a genuine mattress. Makes my mouth water."

"Just you and me?"

"Mmm." Tony yawned again. "I never thought I'd say it, but I'm getting tired of orgies. Just want you." He muttered a bit more and then fell silent. 

As Steve ran, he could see Tony's blue light, shining steadily, the fingers of his Omega's hands lying lax and trusting in the straps supporting his arms to either side of Steve's chest. They were almost home... if you could call it that. He wanted so very much to have a proper home for Tony, a safe, comfortable nest he could return to after a day's work... of course, Tony wouldn't be content to stay home with the children... Bruce... now, he might like to be a stay-at-home ... there was a thought... if the Commandos built a family compound, one of the old traditions that had faded with urbanization and enclaves, after the war... if there was an 'after'... yeah... Steve kept running, and stayed alert for any danger, but nesting thoughts curled warm and soothing under the surface of his mind.

***

The scouts went on ahead while Steve and the Commandos waited, prepared to run for it if the base had been compromised. "Oh, come on," Tony complained and wriggled in the carrier. "Fury's plan worked, they cleared the Snakes out of the area. I want a bath! And I want to get back to the lab and see what's left of it. I can guess which Betas were left behind. Maya Hansen's clever, but sheesh, her safety protocols... forget them... and Victor! there's a reason we nicknamed him Von Boom. He's clumsier than Curt Connors juggling eggs, and considering Curt only has one arm..."

Steve let Tony ramble on, since he was being reasonably quiet about it, and it distracted him from trying to climb down from the carrier.

"Don Blake, he's a good fellow, pretty nimble with his cane... yeah, and Matt Murdock... not even Fury would have sent out a blind man to battle. Or Charles Xavier- can't fight Snakes from a wheelchair. God, it's gonna be a bitch working with whoever's left to gimp around in the tech department. I may have to recruit the Commandos to do the heavy lifting."

Maybe Tony wasn't really complaining, but trying to reassure himself that there would be familiar faces. The casualties among the untrained Betas must have been very high, and...yeah, Steve was picking up guilt-scent from Tony. Oh, of course. Tony's discovery had led to the mission. "It's not your fault," he said softly. "It was the only way."

Tony shifted and said in a whisper, "They weren't soldiers. They were lab techs, and cooks, engineers, security guards, and maintenance workers."

"I know." Steve didn't really understand, but he tried to see it from Tony's point of view. Alphas were pretty much bred for aggression, and a lot of them died doing stupid, risky, pointless things as teenagers. Steve had probably used up his quota of stupid, risky, pointless things as a kid getting beat up while protecting Omegas. Only having Bucky as his 'wingman' had saved his life, worthless as he had considered it to be then. It was hard to think like an Omega, expecting life to be safe and smooth, provided you just kept the Alphas around you happy. 

And Betas... he'd never understand a Beta. There were a lot of them, like oh, maybe ninety percent of the population before the invasion shifted things even more dramatically in their favor. Betas were supposed to be the backbone of society, but they always seemed more like background to Steve. They were the people who did the boring, necessary jobs. There were Beta soldiers, but they just... didn't have the fire in the belly, not really. He'd envied them that coolness when the enclaves burned and so many Alphas reverted to savagery. Betas missed the Omegas like a missing tooth; Alphas missed them more like losing a lung... that sounded stupid, even in his own head. Steve never was much good at poetic phrases. Really, he hadn't much thought about the Betas beyond feeling sorry for them in a general way. 

It was selfish, but all Steve could think now was that he hoped against the odds that none of Tony's Beta friends had died, just because he didn't want his Omega to be sad. And Fury. If Fury died, they were pretty much screwed. No one liked his second; Norman Osborn was a damn clever Beta, but he was also a cold son of a bitch.

***

The scouts returned to report that the base was still secure, and the skeleton crew who'd held it had reported no Snake activity nearby, so Steve overruled his irrational nerves and they returned 'home'. Tony scrambled out of the carrier the moment Steve stopped in the corridor after the first check point, while the echoes of the heavy door shutting behind them still rang.

"Gotta go, baby." Tony came in front of Steve, all bright eyes and brighter grin. "Have to get the kids into the shop, show 'em all the toys and get to work." He pulled Steve down for a kiss, and then waved at the Commandos carrying the rest of the Omegas. "GUYS! Vacation's over!" Tony grabbed the pack containing the mysterious weapon. "Bring the Spider stuff along, too."

Reed grumbled something about establishing lines of authority and Bruce and Loki looked a bit shell-shocked, but Tony blithely overran everyone with sheer force of personality and got the Omegas all on their feet and heading toward the labs, with Tony guiding them like a hyper-active collie dog. Steve took the heaviest piece of Spider communications equipment from the Alpha who was carrying it, and nodded to Bucky. "Stay here with the rest of the Commandos, Bucky. Try to sort things out. I don't know who's in charge at the moment, but if they need me, they can find me in the labs." Steve was certainly not going to leave Tony alone, especially not before they found out if Howard had survived.

"The Omegas should have a familiar escort," Thor said, gazing down the corridor at Loki. "Yeah," Happy added, not quite looking at Bruce. Steve hadn't been so busy that he hadn't noticed courting going on, and he had to admit that those two Omegas needed special attention that few Alphas were suited to give them. Once Thor had discovered that Loki also came from Norway he had begun speaking to Loki in their native tongue. Steve was fairly sure Thor had been bragging about how strong he was judging by all the biceps flexing and the shy, admiring looks Loki had given him. And Happy was endlessly patient with Bruce's fits of sullen despair alternating with simmering un-Omega anger. 

Steve nodded. "Right, Thor and Happy, bring the rest of the Spider-salvage." He could hear Bucky giving orders as he followed Tony. Steve was pretty sure the Commandos would find excuses to visit 'their' Omegas, but he trusted his people not to let that interfere with their duties.

***

"Bedtime, Tony," Steve announced for the fourth time some fifteen hours later. At first he'd phrased it as a hint, then a strong suggestion, and now he was down to a warning. 

Tony glanced up from whatever he was doing, Steve had no idea except that it was attached by wires to a blue cube about the size of his fist. Supposedly this was the secret weapon, but frankly, it didn't impress him. "You shouldn't startle me, Steve. This is a very delicate, dangerous... thing. Thingie."

Across the lab, Reed gave Tony one of his disapproving looks. All the other Omegas had gone off-shift. Reed in fact had gone off, slept, ate and returned. Steve had practically to stand over Tony growling before he'd eat, and even then, he gulped down a sandwich and fruit juice while looking at notes and prodding bits of Spider with his free hand.

Steve said, "If you're working with anything that can kill us all, all the more reason you need to sleep. Now."

"But, Steeeeeeve," Tony protested even as Reed came over and began undoing what Tony had just done. "Noooo! Oh. Wait. Yeah, maybe..." 

Steve gave up persuasion. He picked Tony up and put him over his shoulder and began walking out of the lab. He could feel Tony's hands pressing against his back as Tony levered himself up to shout at Reed, "Wrong way up!"

"You should know," Reed replied.

Tony grumbled all the way to their room and sat up the moment Steve deposited him on the bed. "I get it, I really do, I mean, I know you worry about me, but you really don't have to."

"Uh huh," Steve said as he pulled off Tony's shoes and socks and began massaging his feet.

"Oh. Ohh... that's... yeah, ok," Tony muttered as he slumped back into the bedding. "Fine. You want to keep me barefoot and pregnant on the outskirts of town..."

"You have nice feet," Steve said, smiling at the picture Tony made, arms spread and hair a tousled mess with his eyes flickering open only to slide shut again. 

Tony made a wordless noise of appreciation, let out a long sigh, and fell asleep.

"Works every time," Steve said as he undressed and got under the covers to cuddle Tony. Just for a few minutes. He had things to do. Important things.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony discovers something interesting about the Snakes, which should make Bruce feel better.

Steve woke up an hour later, aroused by his internal clock. He kissed Tony's neck and got a sleepy wriggle in response. Tony smelled good, tired, but not sad. Fury had left behind a lot more techs than Steve expected, which made sense, now that he thought about it. The main point of the mission, beyond Steve's natural priority to rescue the Omegas, was to bring back something for the techs to develop. When Tony was greeting his friends, Steve heard the story. Fury had at first refused permission for any of them to go, but when they pulled the honor card and said they'd all go out and serve as Snakebait if they couldn't do anything else, he allowed them to choose the three strongest Beta techs to represent them. Steve had never met Namor McKenzie, Ben Grimm, or Isaiah Brady, but Tony told him they were damn tough, and he'd been resolutely cheerful. He hadn't mentioned Howard, and Steve was not going to stir up that pot.

He got up and dressed silently, then had a quiet talk with the Commando who was standing guard outside Tony's quarters. Phil said that Fury was reported to be on his way back. He looked apologetic when he said that they had no information beyond that. Steve nodded and left to check out the rest of the base. People were missing, and the infirmary had a number of casualties, the lucky few who hadn't been injured too badly to return to base. They were in better spirits than he'd expected because several of the Omegas had visited them to thank them for their part in the rescue. He wasn't sure whose idea it was to allow the Omegas to run around the base, but he had to admit that the faint overlay of Omega-scent everywhere did make him feel calmer and more positive, so he couldn't say it was entirely a bad idea, but he checked to make doubly certain that they'd had escorts from the Commandos at all times. 

The Betas wouldn't cause any problems, of course, but an Alpha might be struck by a sudden territorial urge if he or she encountered an unprotected Omega, particularly if the Omega was scenting unhappy, and really, none of them were all that stable. Happy and Thor had moved into the quarters assigned to Bruce and Loki, which was a good sign. They couldn't have done that without being invited. 

Steve was careful not to issue any orders to anyone other than the Commandos. Bringing back seven unbonded Omegas had given him prestige, maybe enough to make people think he'd try to usurp Fury's place, and he wanted to make it clear he had no intention of messing with the established line of command. Beyond the fact that Fury was much better suited at the position than he would be, they couldn't afford to set the precedent for Alpha-Challenge or they'd degenerate into squabbling factions. In a way, Steve had the advantage over most Alphas- he'd been so scrawny and sickly as a youngster that he had a visceral understanding what it was like to be low man on the totem pole, as well as knowing what it was to be a proper Alpha, defender of those in his care.

***

Tony sighed and rolled over, patting the bedding absently until he woke up enough to realize that Steve wasn't there. "The honeymoon's over," he said mournfully into the pillow. Then he heard the door open, and smelled coffee. He sat up and blinked until his eyes focused on Steve holding a mug in one hand and a covered bowl in the other. "All is forgiven, Cupcake." 

"You're so easy to please," Steve said with a grin as he brought over the coffee and sat next to Tony.

"Maybe I should start playing hard to get. I don't want you to take me for granted." Tony gulped down half the mug of coffee at one go before investigating the bowl's contents. "Oatmeal? I don't like oatmeal."

"It's good for you."

"It's blah. It doesn't even have any color." Tony poked at the oatmeal with a spoon and gave Steve the big, sad eyes routine. "Do we have any chili powder?"

"No. No, Tony, I'm pretty sure we don't." From the way Steve said it, Tony got the impression Steve wouldn't give it to him even if they had it. Steve got up and searched their little shelf of luxury foods. "How about raisins?"

"They look like bugs."

"Red currant jam?"

"Yuck, no.. oh, hey, suddenly that sounds good."

Steve spooned a generous dollop of jam on top of the oatmeal and smiled as Tony took a tentative spoonful, hmmmed, and started shoveling it in like it was going out of style. "So, do you need Alpha muscle in the tech lab today?"

"No, we're good." Tony looked up at Steve and grinned. "But I could use someone to stand around and admire my beauty and genius."

***

As Tony's bondmate Steve's scent subtly reassured the still jittery Omegas that the base was a safe place. That was how Steve justified his presence in a corner of the lab, sitting on a bench and contributing nothing to the scientists. He knew, intellectually, that Tony would be fine, that he was in the heart of the complex, with layers of steel and concrete and well-armed, well-trained, Alphas between him and danger, but trying to convince his hind-brain that his pregnant mate didn't need him was going to take a little time. After Fury returned, then maybe he'd go back out on patrol... no, probably not. His stomach muscles tensed at the very thought.

"Yes!" Tony said, and did a little dance of glee over the reassembled Snake communications unit which was now making hissing crackling noises. "Bruce! It's working. C'mere and help me set up a decoding algorithm."

"It's not really an algorithm," Bruce said as he walked away from the group gathered around the blue cube 'weapon-maybe'. "You see, the trick is that the individual sounds are produced by vibrating some type of internal bone structure, so it's groups of rattles rather than phonemes and... you don't really care about that, do you, Tony?" Bruce looked amused.

"Absolutely fascinated. Tell me all about as you help me program the computer. You know I love how your mind works." Tony reached out to ruffle Bruce's hair. "You're the best playmate I ever had."

Bruce grinned and stood next to Tony, shoulders touching, and began talking to him, softly, pointing out things on a print-out as Tony nodded.

Yeah, Steve was going to have to propose family membership to Bruce one of these days. Tony wanted him, and Steve could barely deny him chili powder on oatmeal.

***

Steve left to get something for Tony to eat about six hours later, and when he returned Bruce was dozing, head resting on folded arms on one of the worktables. Tony looked up at Steve and mouthed, "Get Happy." 

Happy and Thor had been finding excuses to hover nearby, so it didn't take long for Steve to return with Happy, who spoke softly to Bruce and got him on his feet and out of the lab while still half-asleep. Tony bounced a bit on his heels and smiled at Steve. "I want him. Can I keep him, Steve? He doesn't eat much."

"Doesn't Bruce have a say in this?"

"Of course he does. He can say yes." Tony began eating, forking food into his mouth left-handed without looking at the bowl, right hand busy working. Steve was beginning to think that he could feed Tony anything while he was distracted. He made a note to slip in more veggies and roughage.

"You should sleep, too."

"Eh. Later. This is... it's... oh." Tony tilted his head and listened to the crackling garble coming from the Snake communicator. He dropped the fork and leaned forward, intent. 

"What is it?"

Tony waved one-hand at Steve impatiently, jotting down notes with the other. There was a pause in the chittering noises and Tony looked up at Steve. "Launching lasers. The Snakes use launching lasers."

"Yes?" Steve had no idea what that was.

"It's..." Tony ran both hands through his hair, until he looked like a fluffy hedgehog. "We were thinking that because they're space travelers that the Snakes are technologically far advanced, that they've got some kind of... I dunno, FTL is bogus, but there were theories..."

"Tony," Steve interrupted. "What are launching lasers?"

"Actually, very primitive, and slow, method of propulsion, and the way the Snakes are doing it, non-manueverable." Tony looked at Steve, expectantly. "Don't you get it? Once the Snakes' ships launch, they chug along on a straight path for hundred of years, powered by the momentum captured in solar sails. Their ships are one-way multi-generation colony vessels. They were heading directly for Earth long before Bruce was born."

"So it didn't matter what he'd said to them, they would have invaded anyway." Steve smiled. "That's good. He can stop feeling guilty."

"Wait, I haven't finished. The only time they can change direction is when they near a sun. The original plan was to use the sun to change course and give them a boost for Alpha Centauri."

"So they wouldn't have bothered us."

"Weeeelll, no, it wouldn't have exactly been a bother. They were going to make the sun go nova."

"Nova?" Steve felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. He'd always thought that was just a saying.

"Yeah." Tony spread the fingers on both hands. "Poof. But somehow talking with Bruce made them decide Earth was suitable colony material, so they landed instead. Bruce saved the Earth." Tony tilted his head. "Yeah."


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony, Bruce and Steve in the lab, discussing SCIENCE... well, pseudo-science.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Several of the plot points in this chapter emerged in discussion with commenters. As Comcast has been mostly non-connected today, I am hastily posting this without taking the time to locate the commenters in question, but yes, I do remember and thank you for your input.

"No, really, listen for yourself, Bruce," Tony said after Bruce returned to the lab, with Happy hovering protectively nearby. "I swear I'm not lying to make you feel better." He turned on the recording of the relevant Snake conversations.

Bruce listened to the Snakes' rattling, hissing voices, and then abruptly waved his hand to shut it off. "So, instead of it being my fault that millions of people have suffered and died, I'm a hero because billions are still alive to suffer and die? I'm sorry, Tony, it's just... I should have known. We could have been prepared..."

"How? What did we have that we could have thrown against them? They bombarded Earth from space, beyond our longest range missiles. The only difference knowing ahead of time would have made... well... probably we would have called _all_ the Omegas into the enclaves, because those were the best protected from conventional warfare." Tony stroked Bruce's arm. "You know I don't believe in fate and all that crap, but because of you, Earth has a chance."

Bruce turned then and pressed his face against Tony's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I'm... I just..."

"I know." Tony put his arms around Bruce and hugged him hard. "You wanna cry? Go ahead, I'm waterproof, baby."

Bruce gave a muffled laugh, and then he did cry, harsh, choking and painful sounding grief let loose. After a few minutes Tony looked up and nodded at Happy and Steve who came over and joined them, encircling their Omegas protectively. Tony said softly, "You'll be all right. You'll be fine. You have a family now, and we'll always love you."

***

"I hope you haven't broken any of my techs, Tony," Howard said dryly as he walked into the lab to the scene of Bruce sitting on a lab stool bemused while Tony berated Victor who was waving a whiteboard covered in X-ed out formulae.

Tony whirled, grinning like a maniac. "Dad! How was your trip? Did you bring me any souvenirs?" 

Howard laughed. "Yeah, but..." he held up his right arm, which was in a dirty cast up to the elbow, "I'm having it delivered."

"Mmm," Tony hesitated, glanced at Steve, and then went to his father. "I'm glad you made it." Tony patted his stomach. "And the little guy is glad, too. Well, will be glad once you start grandpa spoiling."

"I don't... have a lot of experience with babies, you know," Howard said, looking awkward.

"Yeah. On the job training is a bitch. Maybe you'd better start early, this time." Tony caught Howard's left hand and put it firmly against his belly.

***

"General Fury? You sent for me, sir?" Steve asked as he walked into Fury's office. Fury looked up from a table full of maps, pausing with pen in hand. 

"Yes, Captain Rogers." Fury looked grim. "I sincerely do hope those Omega eggheads you brought back have the real goods with them."

"They're pretty sure of it, once they get it figured out. Apparently it's a power source that can be adapted to just about any use. Tony says they can't even begin to estimate how strong it is. It's off all the scales."

"But can it be used as a weapon?"

Steve nodded and then shrugged. "Well, they have to figure out what to do with it, first."

"They'd better think fast. I don't have all the recon reports in yet, but all the signs are that the Snakes are withdrawing from their current positions."

"That's good news, isn't it, sir?"

"If I thought they were packing up and going home, then I'd say yes, but we both know that isn't an option."

"Yes, sir." Steve had given Fury a complete report of Tony's explanation of the Snake's arrival, including his considered opinion that once they landed, they were committed to stay, since their ships had no independent launching capability. "And I don't believe a viable coexistence could be arranged."

Fury grunted. "The 'we are friends' routine was tried. Result: ten barbecued diplomats. No, either we exterminate them, or they exterminate us. There is no middle ground." Fury looked down at the maps and the clusters of marks roughly encircling their position. "We lost a lot of good people on this mission, and more, we lost the element of surprise. The Snakes aren't stupid, they know we must be planning something, and they're going to try to take us out."

"How long do you think we have?"

"A few weeks... maybe a month, they seem to be gathering at a set point- no idea why, but once they get there-- all hell is gonna break loose."

***

After three weeks and still no breakthrough, and no action on the Snakes' part, everyone on base was strung wire-taut. Fury had to break up several fights over petty issues. He also assigned most of the soldiers to filling sandbags and piling them over and around the largest surface building in order to divert attention from the real base, underground. Steve doubted it would fool the Snakes for five minutes, but it gave people something to do. The scientists were working until they dropped, literally fell asleep at their stations. Steve's unit was posted in the lab to make sure the Omegas at least were fed at regular intervals. The Beta techs worked as hard, but tended to retain enough common sense to know when they were hungry, or too exhausted to function. Steve kept having to carry Tony to bed, where at least he could snuggle him as he slept.

"Tony." Steve leaned in past Bruce to lay a plate of food in front of him. Tony was the worst of them all. Steve couldn't make up his mind whether he was more exasperated by Tony's indifference to his body's basic needs when he was caught up in work, or kinda guiltily pleased at the proof that his Omega needed him. Tony breathed a noise that sounded vaguely like acknowledgment and began one-handed eating. It was a wonder he hadn't put out an eye with the fork. Beside him, Bruce gave Steve a shared glance of amusement before continuing with his own work.

"Hey, Tony." Steve looked closer. Tony looked worse than tired... "Hey, when did you last shift?"

Tony froze and then blinked, looking up at Steve. "Um...two weeks ago... right before we returned, you remember?"

"That was _three_ weeks ago." Steve swiveled Tony's chair around and lifted the hem of his t-shirt. The black webbing was spreading on his chest again. Steve berated himself for not noticing. Just because they hadn't had sex in weeks was no excuse. "Come on, you need to change."

"I can't." Tony tugged his shirt down. "Remember? Fury put the base on lockdown this morning. We can't go out."

"You can change in our room."

"The last time I shifted in the base... I wrecked a lot of equipment... would have hurt people if Fury hadn't got me chained down. I can wait."

"That was different. Honey knows me now, knows he's safe with me."

"Maybe." Tony looked down at his shirt, smoothing it over and over again. "But he likes to hunt. To kill things."

Bruce said, "The detox is apparently instantaneous. You just shift for a few seconds."

"Maybe," Tony said again. "He's not always predictable. If he's hungry, or bored, he won't want to change back."

"Well, you can eat first," Steve said. "And if he's bored... well..." Steve felt his face heat. "I could, maybe... you know... distract him."

"How?" Tony stared at Steve for a long moment, and then giggled. "If you like fur, Steve, I could wear a coat. Honey is totally asexual. He knows you're his mate, but he has no sexual drive at all."

"Huh," Bruce said, "You know, that makes sense." He had his 'Science!' face on. Steve recognized it because it was so similar to Tony's.

"It does?" Tony turned to Bruce, eyebrows raised in inquiry.

"Yeah, see.. I met Erskine. He was trying to get backing for his research and he didn't want to be labeled a crackpot, so he didn't mention his hypothesis that the serum was organically synergistic, interacting on a subconscious level... the hypothetical Id, in fact."

"Huh," Tony said, while Steve tried to figure out what Bruce was talking about. "He give you any details?"

"Well, he'd only been able to afford tests on mice, so his data were limited, but he noted that there seemed to be two main factors- basic personality, and stress coincidental with the administration of the serum. Mean mice became meaner, others became immune to electric shock or heat or cold. He said that he wanted to work with domestic animals, but... then the enclaves burned and he died."

"So," Tony said, while looking at Steve, "a good man who had always wanted to protect Omegas might develop attributes to fulfill that desire. And someone who was being poisoned might become a creature immune to toxins- you don't need a sex drive for that."

Steve said softly, "And Alphas reverted to primitivism could become deformed raging creatures fit only to slaughter anything in their path."

Tony nodded and glanced at the locked cabinet where they kept vials of the serum, against the desperate day when it seemed worth it for all of them to become monsters and kill as many Snakes as possible before dying. "Yeah. There aren't a whole lot of people as good as Steve."


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disaster strikes, and an unlikely hero emerges.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for delay, was catching up on much neglected yard work. (A week and 47 large garbage bags later, I am sore, but no longer in violation of city weed ordnance. And you think Tarzan lived in a jungle...)

"You're trying to distract me, so I'll forget you need to shift," Steve said.

"Would I do that?" Tony asked, all wide-eyed innocence. Behind him, Bruce nodded. Tony followed Steve's gaze and caught Bruce still nodding. "Hey! Science bros, remember?"

"You need to take better care of yourself, Tony," Bruce said. "You're going to be setting an example for a little one, you know!"

"Fine, fine, I can't stand against both of you." Tony sighed. "Just this _once_. Only, let me finish this last bit, it's so close..."

Steve nodded. "All right. I'll go to the commissary and get you something more substantial to eat. Finish that while I'm gone!" 

Tony poked at the food, identified rice, corn and kidney beans, decided that they really, really needed to send out hunting parties, shrugged and resumed shoveling it in while comparing data runs feeding from four computers. "Hey, Bruce, you want to go check Idiot? It's running a bit hot."

"Well, if you hadn't overclocked it..." Bruce went over to the opposite side of the lab to one of the older computers and opened the case to check that nothing was melting. 

"If I hadn't over-clocked it, it wouldn't be much use now, would it?" The lights flickered and there was a rumbling sound. Tony looked up. "Is someone playing about with explosives on the level above?"

"Shouldn't be," Howard said, also looking up from an experiment he was running on the mysterious cube in the center of the room, with nearly all the techs gathered around him. He was still wearing a cast, but that didn't stop him from running the tech department. The lights flickered again and a siren went off. The cube's constant glow strengthened to a white-hot glare. "We're under attack! Get under cover!" Howard seized the cube in tongs, tossed it into a reinforced steel safe and slammed the door shut. Some of the techs were running for the 'panic room' but most of them were trying to save their work. "GET OUT!" Howard said in full Alpha mode and everyone jumped to obey... well, almost everyone. Tony lingered to shove his favorite computer under a desk, and Bruce headed for Tony.

And then there was a rumbling, thunderous, crack! and the ceiling split along a support beam. Cement and powdered dust filled the air making everything blizzard white in an instant. The sirens went dead. Pale emergency lights came on. The ceiling creaked threateningly. Howard grabbed Peter, the nearest Omega, and shoved him at a Beta tech. "Get the Omegas under cover!" They scrambled over the settling debris, coughing and shouting. In the corridor outside, pounding boots announced the arrival of every Alpha on base. 

"Where's Tony?" Steve shouted, using his shield to fend off falling debris, pushing his way past the other Alphas who were dragging bewildered Omegas outside.

"He's..." Howard turned back to look at the rubble bisecting the room. "Oh, my God, he's..."

"On the other side," Bruce said in a soft and hollow voice. 

Steve glanced at his wrist. Still blue. "He's alive! Come on!" He began hauling chunks of cement to one side, Howard working one-handed to wrestle smaller pieces out of the way. They worked without saying anything for several minutes. The attack apparently was a one-shot as nothing else happened. Steve was vaguely glad of that as the twisted metal of a support bar was all that was keeping another ton of cracked cement from falling. Once the Omegas were clear, the Commandos moved in to help and Howard moved slightly back to direct their efforts, using his engineering skill to tell which bits could be pulled clear without worsening the situation.

After a few more minutes, Steve realized he could scent an Omega nearby. He glanced over and saw Bruce scrabbling at the debris. "Happy! Get him to safety!"

"No," Bruce said fiercely."Tony's my brother."

Happy looked miserable, but he really had no authority over Bruce, and trying to force Bruce to leave... well... no one would be able to think if Bruce reacted badly, which sure seemed likely. Steve tried to convince him, "Tony wouldn't want you to get hurt."

"I'm fine," Bruce said, throwing a computer out of the way. His hands and knees were bleeding, his clothes were torn, but the set of his eyes was coldly determined.

"You're not strong enough," Steve said as he and Phil and Rhodey all heaved together on a large slab. "Stay back!"

Bruce shuffled out of the way. Steve watched out of the corner of his eye long enough to be sure he wasn't trying to get back into the most dangerous part of the room and then he peered through a gap and saw Tony. "TONY!" He threw aside chunks of cement and forced his way through the gap. Tony was unconscious, lying curled on his side, trapped beneath the main support beam, which was slanting across and holding back a massive hunk of rebar.

Howard followed Steve into the limited free space, ignoring the hard knocks his cast took getting in there. "The weight is across his hip bones." Howard reached his hands in to feel along Tony's body while Steve stroked Tony's face and tried to wake him. "The baby is probably all right... and if Tony could shift, he'd heal." The beam creaked and moved a couple inches. Howard and Steve flung themselves to arch over Tony, protecting him from the rain of pebbly debris. Howard coughed. "Can you wake him?"

"No." Through the bond, Steve could tell that Tony was down for the count. "We'll have to get him out of here."

"Yeah," Howard said, looking up and around at the spreading cracks in the ceiling. "And fast." 

The Alphas tore into the rubble, with Betas hauling it clear until they reached a point where moving anything else would collapse the remaining cement onto Tony. Steve propped his shield above and looked at Howard desperately. "What can we do? Lever it up?"

"No. God... there's... no way... we'd have to lift the whole mass at once and pull him clear at the same time. I don't think there's anything on the base strong enough to do that."

"Not strong enough?" Bruce said. Steve glanced his way, because something in his tone sparked all Steve's protective instincts. "I will be strong enough." As he watched in horror, Bruce injected something into himself. Bruce glanced at the smashed cabinet that had held the super serum and smiled. "For Tony."

"Oh, shit," Howard said. 

Bruce grunted, bent over and..."STRONG," Bruce growled, "STRONGER. MUST BE STRONGEST." It was nothing like Tony's transformations. Bruce... grew. And grew, muscles and bones leaping and expanding and where it was all coming from, Steve didn't know. Tony stayed the same mass, except for what he lost when reverting back to human. Bruce's skin stretched and changed color, too. 

"Bruce?" Steve asked, hoping that while he looked like a monster, enough of a mind remained to understand. "Don't hurt Tony."

"TONY BROTHER. HULK NOT HURT." 

Steve could still see echoes of Bruce's features in the green face that peered down at him. The giant stepped over Tony, one foot to either side of him, wrapped huge arms around the beam and bent over so his broad back completely shielded Tony. He lifted the beam seemingly effortlessly. Steve and Howard pulled Tony clear and got him out of the room before Bruce... Hulk? tossed the beam aside and walked through the rubble to reach them. He grinned, all big square teeth. "HULK STRONGEST."

"Yeah," Steve said, blinking up at Bruce's enlarged grin. "You betcha."


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony gets better. Fury has spies. The Hulk is being a good guy. (Also, Tony's pregnancy is about 3 months along, so he's got a bit of a baby bump. I bet everyone wants to touch it.)

The base was a mess, but whether by design or just plain bad luck, the worst of it seemed to have struck the lab. In the small corner of his mind that wasn't worrying about the unconscious man in his arms, Steve doubted that the deepest, most secure part of their base had been accidentally targeted. The Hulk hunched over, shoulders brushing the ceiling, and swept rubble out of Steve's path as Howard walked at Steve's side, his good hand resting lightly on Tony's chest. "I don't like the way he's breathing," Howard said.

"Tony, wake up." Steve kicked in a door to someone's quarters and laid Tony down on the bed. "Come on, Tony." Steve patted his face. "You have to wake up and shift." When Tony didn't respond Howard started looking around the room, rummaging in the small assortment of toiletries on a shelf. "Damn it, doesn't anyone use smelling salts any more?"

The Hulk wouldn't fit in the doorway, but he peered in. Worried wrinkles formed across his brow. "TONY SLEEP?"

"Yeah," Steve said. "He has to wake up and shift to Honey."

# "WAKE UP, TONY!"

Hulk roared. Steve staggered back from the force of it. Tony's eyes flew open, wide and panicked. 

"What?" Tony looked around wildly. His eyes widened even further when he saw Hulk. "Yikes. Bad dream. No more green smoothies."

"Tony." Steve put his hand on Tony's chin to catch his attention. "You have to shift. You've been injured." Tony's eyes weren't tracking properly and Steve had to repeat himself several times before Tony finally nodded.

"Yeah. Yeah. Ok." Tony looked around the room. Dust was still hanging in the air, people were still shouting in the halls and Hulk was still framed in the doorway, like a big dog looking into a small dog's kennel. "Not a dream?"

"No. The base has been attacked. You've been injured," Steve said, trying to be patient. "You need to shift to Honey so you can heal."

Tony frowned and pulled vaguely at his shirt. "Clothes."

Between them, Steve and Howard stripped Tony quickly, with his confused hindrance. "Stay awake!" Steve said, using Alpha voice when it looked as if Tony was going to drift off again. He grabbed Tony's shoulders forcing him to meet Steve's eyes. "I need you to shift now. I need Honey."

Tony blinked and looked around the room again. "No. Can't give secrets. Not to them. In the caves, you know. Snakes like caves."

"You're not in a cave," Howard said, giving Steve a worried look. "This is the Area 51 base."

"Oh?" Tony tilted his head, angled toward the Hulk. "Should be little green men, right. That's a really big guy. Is he friendly?"

Hulk reached in and with a delicacy at odds to his size, stroked Tony's belly with one green finger over the barely noticeable baby bump. "BABY NEED HONEY."

"Baby?" Tony's eyes cleared and he took a deep breath. "Yeah. I remember." He winced and started stretching. The change was slower this time, pausing at the intermediate stage Steve had only seen once before, skin rippling and _things_ moving beneath. He whined and lay there panting, tongue lolling from his muzzle.

Steve stroked the coarse gray-brown fur of Tony's shoulders. "You can do it."

Tony shuddered all over and finally completed the change to Honey, who rolled off the bed and backed up, hissing and snarling, fur bristled in a ridge along his spine.

Not right. Underground should be safe, but not. Trapped. No enemy smell, but fear, fear and pain smell everywhere, thick and stinging his nose, thick and making him cough. Mate afraid. Sire afraid. Big, big animal blocking the way out. Honey screams and leaps to attack, clawing and biting at big animal. Big animal has strong skin, can't bite through, but it moves back. Good enough, chase it, doesn't taste good anyway. Save mate. Honey lunges again, snapping at big thing's hands.

"Hulk!" Steve shouted, "Get him to follow you outside!"

Hulk looked as if his feelings were hurt that Honey obviously didn't recognize him, but nodded. "COME, PLAY WITH HULK." He turned and started down the main corridor slowly, letting Honey nip at his heels.

"There could be Snakes outside!" Howard protested. "He could be hurt!"

"If there are any Snakes, Honey and Hulk will have fun," Steve said, following Honey as he 'chased' the Hulk. "I'll take care of them. You've got to look after your techs!" For the sake of morale, Steve overlooked Howard's unprintable comment because Howard did turn the other way.

***

They were nearly out when Fury showed up, standing braced in the middle of the corridor with a bazooka aimed at Hulk. "Hold it right there!" 

"No!" Steve shouted, but he could see he'd be too late. Fury's legendary patience had obviously been broken.

"NOOOO!" Happy screamed as he leaped from nowhere as far as Steve could tell, barreling into Fury and knocking the bazooka out of his hands. "It's Bruce!"

"What the HELL!" Fury yelled. Happy was sitting on top of him, holding him down. Hulk looked at Happy and then grinned before knocking the blast proof doors flying and running out into the sunshine with Honey right behind him.

"It's a long story, sir," Steve shouted over his shoulder as he followed them. "Happy, let the general up!"

***

"Gentlemen and ladies, we have ourselves a situation," Fury said to Steve, Howard, and the other high ranking officers gathered around him in the shade of one of the exterior buildings of the base. He was watching Hulk stomping around, with Happy running next to him, trying to persuade him to become Bruce again. So far the Hulk's answer had been, "BRUCE PUNY. HULK STRONG. HULK SMASH SNAKES." Which, really, Steve couldn't argue the logic of that.

"We have to abandon this base- it's structurally and strategically compromised." Fury leaned forward, looking around the circle. "We have two choices. Scatter and try to cause as much damage with hit and run strikes as possible until our supplies run out, or a mass frontal attack. Either way, the Snakes win. You know what? That's bullshit. You're going to give me an alternative, one where we get the Earth back." Fury nodded. "Observers at the Snake gathering have heliographed reports that some weird kind of Snake circle song and dance coincided with the attack. There wasn't any machinery or visible ordnance involved. I'm gonna leave all the details with the techs, but I'll tell you now, whatever they did, it cost them. More than half the Snakes involved died." 

Howard and Tony exchanged glances. "We have to salvage the lab, see what registered," Howard said. "If it wasn't a physical attack..."

"Yeah," Tony said, "biological? Something like... oh, electric eels?" At Howard's frown, Tony huffed. "Well, not that, of course, but something inherent in their physical makeup. We need a live Snake to study. Strengths can be weaknesses."

"How are we going to capture a Snake?" Steve asked.

Tony turned to look at Hulk. "Um. Give the big guy a butterfly net?"


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Hulk get along very well.

"Steve, I'm bored," Tony said as he sat in the building that was being set up as a temporary lab. Since the generators that powered the underground base couldn't be moved, Howard had hooked up cables from Tony's arc reactor to power several computers and told him to sit still while they transferred all the data they'd salvaged. 'Still' was a difficult concept for Tony. "Talk to me, or you know... distract me..." Tony half-closed his eyes, bit at his lower lip and heaved a sigh very like his usual post-orgasm noises.

Steve chuckled and dragged over a chair into the least cable-tangled area in front of Tony. "If I distract you that much, you'll move, and Howard will shout at me." He took Tony's hand and rubbed his thumb over the back of it. "Do you remember what happened after the Snake attack?"

"Um... not clearly. I was doing an emergency data dump on You Bastard and then the roof fell in."

"Yeah." Steve's grip tightened for a moment. He resisted telling Tony how he wanted to shake him until his brains rattled for staying after the order to evacuate sounded. It's true what Howard told him when they first met-- Tony was born without a sense of self-preservation and no amount of scolding was going to change that. "Well... you were pinned under a steel beam with a load of cement balanced on top. Maybe if you could have shifted, you could have got free, but we couldn't wake you."

"We?"

"Howard and I. There wasn't room for anyone else."

"Oh." Tony glanced over at Howard who was cut up and filthy, like all of the techs gathered around the computers, pointing and arguing over the data. He was favoring his broken arm; the cast was scuffed and chipped. "But, obviously, I did get out. How?"

"Bruce injected himself with the super serum. He kept saying he was going to be strong, stronger than anyone, so he could help you. And... he became the Hulk that Happy's been chasing. He lifted everything off of you like it weighed nothing. When you shifted, Honey attacked him, but couldn't get through his skin. He seems to be invulnerable."

"Huh." Tony was silent for several minutes. Steve watched the changing expressions on his face and scented the guilt and worry that Tony wouldn't express out loud. "So. Erskine was right about the mental component. Hmmm. Wonder why he's green? And where did the extra mass come from? And where will it go when he reverts?" Tony blinked. "Has he reverted to Bruce at all?"

"No. Happy's been trying to convince him, but he refuses to try."

"Maybe he shouldn't. At least not until we can figure out what happens with the mass." Tony looked directly into Steve's eyes. "It could kill him. Honey sheds teeth and fur, but I don't see that working well with muscle and bone, do you?"

***

"Right," Fury said an hour later, pointing on the map at a circle only a few miles away, "this arroyo's been utilized as a grazing area for turbits, with a single Snake herding them. We've left it alone so as not to draw attention to the base, but it's been part of our regular surveillance."

As a scout and soldier, Steve knew that, but it was news to the base-bound techs who hovered on the outer edges of the briefing circle, standing uneasily around a table in a room with too many windows for the comfort of folk who'd spent the last two years underground. Fury felt strongly about restricting information on a 'need to know' basis. It had bit Steve in the ass a few times, so he wasn't overly keen on the policy, but in this case, he'd agreed that there was no sense making noncombatants worry about the enemy 'in their backyard'. And right now, it was convenient.

"What I need from you is a plan to capture the Snake without giving it an opportunity to send out a distress call." 

Howard said, "We've got the Snake language translated. We could put together a recording of a Snake that would draw the herder away from its Spider."

Fury nodded. "Do it. I want the team ready to go within the hour."

***

"Why can't I go?" Tony asked when he saw Steve and the Commandos gearing up with nets and ropes and what looked suspiciously like large rolls of duct tape.

"Because you're recovering from having a ceiling fall on you," Steve said while figure-eighting a length of rope.

"All better." Tony pouted. "You promised I could come with you."

"I... don't remember that."

"You said there wasn't any safe place, and you'd worry about me if I wasn't with you."

"Huh. Yeah, but... this time we're deliberately going after a Snake."

"You're taking Bruce! If he gets to go, I should go too!"

Steve ran his fingers through his hair, trying to get himself under control. Tony was shamelessly using the whole sad eyes and pouting lip routine on him. "Bruce happens to be ten feet tall and invulnerable at the moment."

"He's still Bruce under all that green. He'll listen to me."

Steve paused, remembering how the Hulk had flipped Fury the bird after the bazooka incident. Power had gone to his head, just a bit.

"I heard him talking about smashing Snakes. If you want enough left to analyze you're going to need me to convince Bruce." Tony was giving off smug in waves.

***

"Papaya?" Tony said cheerfully from his seat atop the Hulk's shoulders, holding out a paper bag full of dried papaya chunks. "We're all out of blueberries."

The Hulk grinned, took the bag and stuffed it in his mouth, chewing and gulping the whole thing down in an instant while striding along with the Commandos running alongside him. "GOOD."

Tony blinked. "So, you like a little fiber in your diet, Hulk? Can I call you Hulk? I mean, if you'd like another name, sure, Hugo sounds good. Or Magnus? Or Duke?" 

"HULK GOOD. HULK SMASH SNAKES."

"No, no. _Catch_ Snake. We need one with all its working parts, Honeybunch."

"BREAK A LITTLE?"

"No, not even a little. You ask Bruce, he'll explain it to you." 

A frown formed on the Hulk's face. "NO LISTEN TO BRUCE. BRUCE THINK HULK BAD."

Tony hugged as much of the Hulk's neck as he could reach around. "You two really need to talk. Bruce is just scared of big guys, you know?"

"HULK KNOW. HULK NOT STUPID. NOT TALK ABOUT PUNY BRUCE."

"Yeah, all right." Tony patted the Hulk on the shoulder. "Just, don't smash the snake, please." Hulk grunted a sulky agreement. Tony looked down from his mobile Hulk-throne and gave Steve a thumbs up.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anti-Snake weapon figured out. But... there is always a risk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason I can't reply to Thallys' comment on Chapter 21, but I can to everyone else, how very odd.

Capturing the Snake turned out easier than they'd imagined. Steve didn't know what the recording was saying, but whatever it was, the herder turned immediately and slithered toward the machine they'd hidden in scrubby bushes. When it was nearly there, Tony whispered, "Hulk, Catch!" and patted Hulk's knee from where he stood next to him. Hulk looked down at Tony and grinned and then ...wow. Steve had seen the big guy lift things, and he knew he was amazingly strong, but that jump was incredible.

Hulk roared as he flew through the air, landing on the Snake's neck, directly behind its hood. It went into wild convulsions, twisting to grab at its unwanted rider with its handling tentacles while it hissed and bared venom-dripping fangs. "BAD SNAKE!" Hulk shouted and grabbed the Snake's jaws with one hand, holding them closed. "GO SLEEP!" he ordered and hit it on the top of the head with his other fist. The Snake toppled forward, lidless eyes staring. Steve wasn't sure it was unconscious, but it wasn't moving, which was enough for him to order the Commandos to secure their captive with bindings on the handling tentacles and tail manipulators and a great deal of duct tape around the jaws.

"High five, Hulk!" Tony said and the Hulk obligingly knelt so Tony could jump up and smack his hand against the Hulk's before climbing back onto the big green shoulder. "Home, James!" Tony ordered gleefully while kicking his feet against the Hulk.

"Hey! He could help carry the Snake," Steve protested.

The Hulk stood up and looked down at Steve. "HULK CATCH. YOU CARRY." He started off towards the base, Tony waving cheerfully from his perch. Steve sighed and helped the Commandos tie carrying nets and rope around the Snake before they followed in the Hulk's big footprints.

***

"The scouts said that the Snakes had touched the tips of their tentacles when they did whatever it was," Steve said, trying to keep Tony focused on him instead of all the activity going on in the lab around him. He really hated seeing Tony hooked up like a battery, being _used_.

"Yeah." Tony nodded. "Probably a lot of nerve endings there, like fingers. Maybe some form of electrical impulse that can synchronize them into a temporary unit. They have large brains, if all the electrical activity of the entire nervous system could be channeled, overloaded through a focal point, then they'd..." Tony tapped at the glass covering his reactor. "Well, nothing like the power of this, but hooked up in series it'd be quite a respectable amount."

Reed was arguing with Peter and Betty, but they were all talking at once, and Steve couldn't make out the technical specifics. Something about this being an unparalleled opportunity to study versus Peter advocating a quick and dirty solution. Steve was on Peter's side. Nothing is interesting to a dead man, and if the Snakes pulled themselves together for another strike, while the base was basically bare-assed in the wind--- well, what took down specially reinforced walls was unlikely to have any difficulty turning human flesh and bone to mush.

Howard stepped in to break it up, directing the scientists back to monitoring the Snake, which was staked down by chains driven into the cement floor all along its length, a reptilian Gulliver among the Lilliputians. Hulk was crouched near its head, cracking walnuts between his fingers and flicking the shells at the Snake. He really didn't like Snakes. "Hey, Dad," Tony said, "when do I get a turn to play?"

"You were never very interested in biology, Tony," Howard said while bending over to tap at a dial which twitched and then moved halfway.

"It's squishy." Tony scowled. "What did you find out?"

"Without dissection, we can't be certain, but it looks as if they can link neural paths and combine to create a 'beam' of coherent sound- the equivalent of coherent light." He picked up a chunk of broken cement. "In effect it resonates until the target shatters."

"A sonic laser?" Tony squirmed against the wires. "That's... well, obviously it's not impossible, because it happened. But how?"

Howard shook his head. "At the moment that isn't important. What is important is that there's a specialized section of the Snake brain involved that reacts to sound in a way no Earth lifeforms can. That's their last-resort weapon. It's also their vulnerability. If we can find the right frequency it should kill Snakes without harming anything else."

"It _should_?" Steve asked.

"There's always a chance we've miscalculated and even though humans aren't capable of responding as Snakes do, it might have unforeseen negative effects. I've spoken with General Fury and outlined the risks. I'm just awaiting his decision before we start trying to determine the exact frequency."

"So, you think he'll go along with it?" Steve reached out to hold Tony's hand.

"I think we have run out of options."

Fury entered the lab a few minutes later with Osborn and the rest of the commanding officers. He nodded grimly at Howard. "You have a go, Mr. Stark."

"Thank you, sir." Howard turned back to the equipment, giving terse orders and manipulating the controls of one jury-rigged device himself. Steve couldn't hear anything, but he noticed the Snake's scales rippling and the muscles twitching. He began to feel warm. Suddenly the Snake lurched in its bonds, made a single loud hissing rattle and fell back to the cement with pale blood running out of the shattered ear membranes on either side of its head.

"It worked," Steve said. He didn't quite believe it. After all this. It seemed too easy.

Howard looked around the room. "Is everyone all right? Tony?"

"Tony?" Steve had a sudden worry. What about the baby? He put his hand against Tony's belly. It was too soon to feel anything but he thought he should be able to tell if there was anything wrong.

"I'm fine," Tony said putting his hands over Steve's. 

"So, experiment a success, what's next, sir?" Steve asked Fury. "Build as many sonic blasters as we can and go out in force?"

"No. We can't tip our hand. They might be able to come up with protection against it, some sort of helmets, or jamming devices," Fury replied. "We need one overwhelming, global strike." He looked at Howard for verification. Howard shifted uneasily and said nothing.

"The whole world?" Tony frowned. "The cube is probably powerful enough, but it needs a... jump-start, like TNT to get an A-bomb going. Where...." Tony was tapping his fingers restlessly against his arc reactor. Fury turned his gaze to stare at it. "Oh. Yeah. That could work."

"No," Howard said. "It could also kill Tony. I forbid it."

Fury shook his head. "You don't have the final say." He held up his hand as Steve opened his mouth to protest. "Neither do you. Well, Tony? We could make another arc reactor... if we have the time."

"Which... we really don't." Tony kissed Steve. "For luck."

***

"You'd better stand back now, Steve." Tony was lying on his back on a table next to the machinery, with the cube wired directly into his arc reactor, and a heavy cable linking them both to the sonic weapon. He was bathed in blue light and Steve thought he'd never looked more beautiful, nor more vulnerable.

"Yeah. I'll be right here." Steve moved to one side, and Tony turned his head so he could watch him.

"I'm ready, Dad," Tony said.

Howard said, "I've always been proud of you, Son." And then he turned the dial.

Steve felt the heat building up, more than before along with a hum he hadn't noticed the first time the machine was run. Tony gasped and arched off the table as the blue glow built and then burst to a blinding sapphire lightning blaze so bright Steve could see the bones of his hands, flung up instinctively to shield his eyes. It lasted only an instant and then he lowered his hands and blinked, chasing away the after images. The Snake's corpse was smoking from the ear holes.Tony was lying on the table, still, still and dark. "Tony?" Steve was at the table in two steps, tearing the cube off and throwing it to one side. The arc reactor was dark. Tony wasn't breathing.

"Someone! Do something!" Steve shouted.

Hulk leaned over Tony and roared in his face.

The arc reactor stayed dark.

Tony didn't move.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> V. short chapter cuz been busy/sleepy, but I didn't want to leave Tony dangling over the cliff any longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still have 6 months to go before we meet the baby, so I shall be thinking what to do to occupy the time in between.

Howard put his hand over the reactor, and then shook his head and pulled back. "The reactor's gone inert. That... shouldn't have happened."

"But it did!" Steve snapped at him. "Fix it!"

"I... I can't. We don't have anything as powerful... except the cube, and that... you saw what that did." Howard's hands were shaking.

Steve looked around desperately. Only one person met his gaze. Reed Richards had a thoughtful look on his face. "Do you have an idea?" Steve asked. 

"Well, an idea, yes. But it's not even theoretical, just conjecture at this point." 

"What is it?" Steve had never threatened an Omega in his life, but he was sorely tempted to grab Reed by his skinny throat and shake him until his genius brain rattled. "Can it save Tony?"

Reed blinked. "Oh, yes. It might do. You see, Bruce's unprecedented mass-gain during metamorphosis led to me think that there had been activity on a subatomic level, energy binding matter gathered from... well, the source is immaterial at the moment. But the point is-- if he can reverse the process, not only would he lose mass, he would emit the binding energy no longer needed. If the arc reactor was in close proximity, the excitation field might 'prime the pump' in layman's terms." Reed nodded. "It would be an interesting experiment."

Steve gathered Tony up from the table and laid him down in front of the Hulk. "Please. Bring Bruce back. Tony needs him."

The Hulk shook his head. "HULK NOT WANT TO DIE."

"You wouldn't die." Steve doesn't know if he's lying or not. Tony had been concerned that reversing the metamorphosis _might_ kill Bruce, but if he doesn't do it, Tony _will_ die. "You'd just be Bruce again."

"BRUCE PUNY. BRUCE SCARED. HULK BETTER THAN BRUCE."

"No, you're not!" Steve shouted. "What use are you if you let Tony die?" He slammed both fists into the Hulk's chest. It was like punching a steel wall. The Hulk looked down at Steve and growled, but didn't attempt to strike back. In fact, he seemed to be cringing.

"Hey, Cap, what if it does kill Bruce?" Happy came between Steve and the Hulk. "You can't order him to do it."

"The hell I can't!" Steve punched Happy. He was so angry and frightened and frustrated that having an Alpha trying to undermine his authority was just the last straw. Happy fought back. He wasn't as strong as Steve, but he was just as motivated, fighting for his Omega. They didn't even notice as the Hulk moved away from them. 

"HULK NOT DO BECAUSE YOU SHOUT."

Steve turned, one fist still tangled in Happy's shirt, to see that the Hulk had picked up Tony and was cradling him gently against his massive green chest.

"HULK DO BECAUSE LOVE TONY." And then the Hulk closed his eyes and a look of fierce concentration came over him. His whole body shimmered and began glowing green.

"No!" Happy shouted, but Steve held him back. 

"You can't stop it," Steve said, "It's too late." He only hoped it wasn't too late for Tony.

The light brightened until Steve had to close his eyes against the glare. When he opened them, Bruce was lying in a crumpled heap on top of Tony. Happy cried out and pulled Bruce up and into his arms. Bruce blinked and looked at him, dazed. "Did... it work?" 

Steve knelt and touched Tony's throat. There was a pulse, the same beat and a half whose rhythm had lulled Steve to sleep for months. "Tony." Steve patted his cheek. 

Tony's eyes flew open. "Huh." He looked around. "Oh, hey, Bruce is back." Then Tony frowned and looked down at his chest. The arc reactor was glowing green. "That's new."


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are apologies and moving onward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short chapter, but am still busy/sleepy so best I can do. Also, when I hit the last line, it felt a good place to pause.

It was all very confusing. The air was thick with guilt scent from the people closest to him, and why was that, but before he could ask, Steve grabbed him tightly and really...was crying? Steve? Crying against Tony's chest. Definite dampness there. Howard was stroking Tony's hair and while he wasn't crying he sounded not far from it. Fury of all people came and knelt with his hands on Howard's shoulder, even though all the techs and most of the upper ranks were in the room, watching.

"You could have died, Tony," Howard said.

"Yeah, I guess so. But hey, I'm fine. And it's not as if it's the first time an experiment..."

"I was in too much of a hurry."

"Howard, I pressured you. I'm sorry," Fury said. 

Tony looked at Fury's hands, and at his father's hands reaching up to touch Fury. Blue. Blue lights. When the hell did that happen? Ok, Tony was NOT going to think about his father and Fury being bond mates. There are some things a son really doesn't want to know. At least Howard's guilt was easing, but there was still a fog of remorse you could almost cut with a knife.

"This is weird." Tony looked around as best he could past Steve and Howard and Fury. Happy was hugging Bruce really hard, and they both smelled guilty as hell, which ok Bruce was the poster boy for undeserved guilt, but Happy? Happy was the most mellow Alpha Tony had ever met. "What's everyone feeling so bad about? I'm ok, and we got rid of the Snakes. We did, didn't we?"

Reed looked up from the communications equipment. "I've been monitoring all known Snake frequencies," he said, with a definite tone of 'I'm doing my job while no one else is.' Tony thought Reed was a pain in the ass, but he had to admit the man knew how to work. "There are a few open lines, but none are transmitting any live messages. Without further evidence, I hesitate to commit to a definite answer, but provisionally, I should say that the Snakes are dead."

"Great." Tony tugged on Steve's hair. "Steve? What's the matter, Sugar?" Alphas were so delicate under their hard shells. They didn't know how to bend at all. Tony couldn't allow himself to be upset. He'd have the whole base sobbing, and really... that just... no. Tony took an Omega's responsibility seriously, it was one of the few things that really mattered to him. "Tell me, what's wrong?"

Steve shuddered and then pulled back far enough away so Tony could see, yep, definitely crying. Alphas did it badly because they don't have enough practice. It hurts them. "Your reactor failed, and Reed said that if the Hulk transformed back into Bruce, it might save you."

"Huh." Tony thought a moment. "Oh, sure. That amount of mass conversion would involve a huge energy release as a side-effect. Why didn't I think of that?" Reed was scenting smug. Tony ignored him. "Well, obviously it worked. Thanks, Bruce!" He smiled at Bruce who ducked his head and looked even more miserable.

"I... the Hulk was afraid, he didn't want to..." Bruce said softly.

And then Steve smelled really guilty. "What?" Tony shifted to look at him again. "Steve. What?"

"I..." Steve swallowed, visibly swallowed hard, adam's apple bobbing as if the words were stuck in his throat. "I threatened Hulk. And... he's an Omega."

Tony blinked. He hadn't been sure. Hulk had a unique scent. "Yeah, but Steve, you couldn't really hurt him."

"He's an Omega," Steve said as if that was the only thing that mattered, and to him, it was. "Happy defended him, or I don't know what I would have done. I'm sorry, Bruce. I'm so sorry, Happy."

"Happy defend..." Tony looked. Happy and Bruce were blue lit, too. "Hey! Ok! Enough with the sad faces and the sorry sorrys. LOOK! We need to give Bruce and Happy a bonding party!" There was no way on Earth he was going to mention his father and Fury. No. Didn't happen. I saw nothing. The very idea of Fury as bond-dad was enough to make Tony's bones quiver like Jello. "And a 'we saved the Earth' party! Don't tell me you techs don't have a still hidden somewhere! It's TRADITIONAL!" Tony kissed Steve, using plenty of tongue.

***

"Awesome party," Tony said three hours later, while draped over Steve's knees and looking up at the nighttime sky, watching hastily cobbled-together fireworks paint colors against the darkness. Some of the Omegas had relaxed enough to have sex, so the whole base was cheerful. Happy and Bruce were still only at the holding hands stage, but Tony sensed no frustration about them, it just wasn't the right time for them. Not yet. Loki and Thor seemed to have hit it off-- they weren't blue, but they were definitely more than friendly. Tony hoped they have lots of kids.

"We had a lot of catching up to do." Steve's hands drew feather light circles over Tony's belly. 

"Tell me about it! Two years without a party! That's the longest dry spell in my life." Tony squirmed to get more comfortable. "I really, really hate this base. Um. I didn't mean to say that."

Steve laughed. "Where would you like to go?"

"California," Tony said without hesitation. "I've always wanted to live in California."

"Sounds good to me."

"You mean it?" Tony sat up and clutched at Steve's shoulders. "Just like that?"

"Sure. We can find a farm or something." Steve stroked Tony's cheek. "Build a family compound, maybe?" He sounded hopeful.

Tony kissed Steve. "Yes! Our family... hey! I've got to make sure Bruce knows he's invited!" Tony scrambled off Steve's lap, and ran off to find Bruce. "BRUCE! We're going to CALIFORNIA!"

Howard wandered past, with an arm around Fury's waist. They were both more than a little tipsy. "That boy never could keep a secret," Fury said before he kissed Howard. Both of them were uncharacteristically coatless, and looked carefree in shirtsleeves, drinking mugs of tech 'lightning juice'.

Steve looked at the two of them, and their blue lit wrists. "Oh. How long..."

"Eh, close to a year now. You don't think I wore that leather coat for fun, do you?" Fury said. "C'mon Howard, we gonna pack for California."

"Yeah," Howard said, leaning against Fury. 

Steve closed his eyes. "Oh, god, Fury is going to be my father-in-law."


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, that's what a green arc reactor means.

Of course they didn't just pack up and head out the next day. There was a week of cautious investigation to confirm the Snakes were really completely dead and not just 'pining for the fjords' as Tony put it before Fury would allow the base to be broken up. While that was going on Howard poked and prodded at Tony trying to figure out if the reactor color change indicated any problems, without coming to any conclusions. Every Alpha on the base scrambled to court the remaining undecided Omegas while the Betas looked on, bemused. Somehow, although Tony hadn't actually _said so_ his invitation to Bruce wound up extended to all the Omegas and before he realized it, they were all discussing what would be worth the effort of hauling to a farm in California with the Commandos, and what they would do there.

"Do you feel greedy?" Tony asked Steve. They were cuddling in bed, and being unashamedly lazy. "You're going to have more Omegas in your family compound than most small towns."

"I feel very greedy," Steve replied, kissing his way down Tony's torso. "I have you, and I have our baby, and I have ... aha... found another ticklish place."

Tony squirmed, giggled and tugged on Steve's hair, pulling him up for a proper kiss. "I was talking to one of the Beta organizers, I think you know her, Bambi Arbogast? And she told me about a organic cattle ranch that was up for sale two years ago in Placerville."

"You want to raise cows?" Steve rubbed Tony's stomach. He's been fascinated by the slight swell of the baby bump ever since it appeared. 

"Not particularly, but there were apple trees, two wells, and a spring along with four buildings set far enough apart one could be a lab without risking blowing up the living quarters."

Steve stopped rubbing and looked up at Tony. "I like apples."

Tony grinned.

***

"Tony, it's been nearly two weeks since you changed," Steve said as they made the last minute check of their quarters for anything useful.

"Yeah." Tony tapped on his green glowing arc reactor. "It's just... I think I'll wait a little longer."

Steve put his arms around Tony from the back. "Are you worried about it?"

"Mmm... not... worried. Just... I've been busy, you know?"

Steve didn't call Tony on it, but Tony was really a very unconvincing liar. If his eyes didn't give him away, his scent did. "All right. We can wait a while longer." Howard had explained that Tony couldn't stop the change once he reached the same toxicity level he had when he was given the serum, so when push came to shove, it would happen. The Commandos and Omegas had got used to Honey, and vice versa, so he wasn't concerned about a sudden change causing problems. Once they started the trip Steve suspected Honey would be nagging at Tony to let him out to hunt, anyway. He rested his chin on Tony's shoulder. "Sure. We'll take it easy this time, we're in no hurry. You shift when you're ready."

***

It was an odd feeling, leaving the base where they'd lived for two intense years, saying farewell to people he'd probably never see again. They were breaking up into groups to spread the word that the war was over, and rebuilding could start, but Steve wasn't going to be part of that. He would have felt guilty about it, but Tony and Howard and the Omega scientists had packed up equipment onto jury-rigged Alpha-drawn carts and promised to build some means of reaching people with the news faster than they'd ever manage on foot. Steve looked back once, and then turned his face toward the future.

***

In hindsight, stopping at the Snake encampment three days away from the base was a mistake, but Tony and Howard had persuaded Fury and Steve to salvage at least the communications tech. "Stay in the Spider!" Steve shouted at Tony as the feral dog pack attacked. The clean-picked Snake bones definitely should have warned him there were predators claiming the site. He'd grown lax, thinking that the aliens were all they had to fear.

They were fearless huge mongrels that looked a cross between bull terrier and mastiff. Fast and mean and undeterred by pain. Most of the Commandos were pinned down in a circle around the Omegas who'd been dismantling a Snake power generator. Clint had run out of arrows, and Steve couldn't throw his shield because several dogs had grabbed it and hung on no matter what he did. 

"We could use the Hulk now, Bruce!" Steve kicked another dog away from the Spider. They could smell Tony, he was sure. Tony, by himself with nothing except Steve between him and dozens of hungry dogs. Steve fought harder, frantic.

"Bruce is down!" Happy shouted from the crowd. "He fell and got knocked out."

Well, damn, Steve thought just as a dog ducked under his shield and latched onto his boot. "HEY!" He bent down to knife the dog, and was hit in the back by another, lost his footing and was on the ground, slashing with his knife, kicking and hitting with the shield and then....there was a snarl, deep-pitched, like thunder brought to life, and the dogs were screaming and pissing in terror and flying through the air, some of them in several pieces. Steve lay flat on his back, gasping for air, staring up at the sky and wondering what the hell had just happened. 

Then the sky was blotted out by a familiar shaggy face. Well. Sorta familiar. Honey's eyes were bright green, each the size of one of Steve's fists. Honey nudged him with his nose. Steve sat up, gripping one of Honey's forelegs to help himself up, discovering that Honey on all fours was as tall as Steve. "Holy cow." 

Honey grinned, showing long, sharp teeth before padding over to the nearest dead dog and eating it. 

"Yuck." Steve considered after a few seconds that an 800 pound honey badger could eat whatever it wanted. He went over to the others to check on the Omegas. 

Howard was staring at Honey. Fury smacked him on the shoulder. "Yeah, our little boy is all grown up."

Honey burped.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comcast down again for 4 hours today, so I'm gonna seize the moment & post a short chapter rather than try to write more and risk being unable to post at all. *sends Honey and Hulk to bite Comcast*


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're about halfway through the journey to their new home. Steve is thinking, Tony is growing (now about 4 months along), and everyone seems to be getting along well.

As if the encounter with the feral dogs had been one last punch before fate threw in the towel, the rest of their journey was trouble-free. Trouble-free, but not quiet. Every few days someone started wondering why they were walking over twelve hundred miles on the strength of a two year old rumor, because, really, once they got out of the desert, every place looked like a pretty good prospect.

Since they didn't have to worry about the Snakes tracking them, they were using roads and going through towns and cities for supplies. There were signs of destruction everywhere, sure, but Fury had explained that the first strikes seemed tactically designed to drive people out, to smash the organization of society through terror while still leaving most of the physical structure intact. Maybe the Snakes had planned to repurpose Earth cities once the annoying humans had been eliminated. It didn't really matter why. They kept leaving signs telling people that the Snakes were gone, and Clint kept reporting that people were watching them from a distance, probably wondering how they dared to walk so freely. 

Humans were always curious. They'd come out after the caravan had passed and find the scent of contented Omegas lingering. The word would spread. Steve kinda suspected that this long journey was no accident. Bambi's cattle ranch story complete with [ photos](http://farmandranchliving.landwatch.com/El-Dorado-County-California-Farms-and-Ranches-for-sale/pid/204538650) had been remarkably convenient. Why would she have taken print outs from a real estate site with her? It was possible, of course that she'd just panicked, grabbing the first thing that came to hand when she ran, and later saw no reason to throw it away. They had so few non-essentials that even a photo of an apple tree seemed a luxury. Still... Fury had taken Tony's announcement with amazing aplomb and had swiftly produced a route map that hit quite a few cities along the way. In a bit less than a month they'd gone through Tucson and Phoenix and next would be Lake Havasu City. They were almost halfway there.

"I visited Lake Havasu City once. It was nice. A bit flat," Clint said casually as he put salvaged bicycle tires onto a new cart frame. They kept picking up useful stuff, and of course, they had the Omegas to carry. Carts were faster than backpacks. "This baby is really gonna move now," he said with satisfaction.

"Chariot race! Up to the next mile marker!" Tony shouted from the seat of his own little cart. "I've got dibs on Steve!" At four months, Tony was a bit bulgy around his front, but it hadn't dimmed his enthusiasm. For anything, including increasingly strange food combinations. 

"You've always got dibs on Steve," Bruce said mildly.

Steve grinned and slipped into the harness of Tony's cart. "I'm game. What's the winner's prize?"

Tony thought about it for a moment. "Winner gets to choose the baby's middle name."

"Great!" Clint grinned. "I've already got a couple picked out."

"Tony," Steve warned him, "If our child winds up named Aubergine, you will deeply regret this."

"Um... Clint. You wouldn't, would you?"

Clint's grin widened. "Hey, I need a jockey. Who's up for it?"

"Me!" Peter ran over and jumped into the cart.

"No fair!" Tony protested. "Peter's lighter than I am."

"Steve's stronger than I am," Clint shot back.

"Wait a minute," Happy said, "Bruce, get in our cart." Bruce smiled and obeyed.

Fury looked at Howard. "We gonna do this, we should do it right. Alphas, choose your partners! Saddle up!" And then Fury climbed into the cart Howard was pulling.

Tony looked at Steve. "If Howard and Fury win... do you know, I was almost named 'Sue' because of an idiotic song?"

"Oh, they wouldn't..." Steve looked at Fury's smirk. "Right." He tightened the straps and took deep, calming breaths as he waited for the rest of the Commandos to line up across the street with their carts and passengers. 

"GO!" Fury shouted and they were off, bumping carts against each other and clattering and veering wildly. Howard fell back almost immediately. His arm was newly out of the cast and it threw him off balance.

Tony clung to the sides of the cart and laughed like a maniac. Clint shouldered against Steve, making him stumble. "FOUL!" Tony yelled and threw a bag of flour at Clint. It exploded into a cloud and Clint slipped sideways, startled. "That'll teach you!" Tony readied more ammunition as Steve tried to regain the lead.

Happy was falling behind, but Coulson and Bucky were angling to cut Steve off, apparently working to eliminate the major threat. Rhodey and Peggy tangled wheels and went skidding off sideways. Thor was well in the lead, with Loki laughing and cheering him on. Steve could see their kid stuck with Ulfr or Hrafn for life. He grabbed his shield one-handed and threw it over Thor's head which startled him into stumbling long enough for Steve to pass him. "You're cheating, Steve!" Tony shouted. "I'm SO PROUD of you!" Tony flung a bag of potato flakes that landed in front of Natasha, exploding into a slippery mass that had her skidding and swearing in Russian. Steve put his head down and pounded on. He could see the mile marker just ahead. He was going to make it, he was... and then Pepper came out of nowhere, put on a burst of speed and flew past him. In the cart Jane was jumping up and down and giggling like mad.

"Oh, well," Tony said as Steve slowed down and they turned to look back at the rest of the team, at the road striped with flour and potato, at the overturned carts and the Omegas and Alphas clinging to each other and laughing. "Could be worse." He grinned at Steve.


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A stop in San Francisco. Alas, it's not ready for tourism. (I finally gave in and drew Tony.)

After another month of travel Steve was certain something was up with Fury and Howard. They'd confer over the map, with Howard looking at some gadget in his hands, and then, more often than not, Fury would come up with some reason why they needed to alter their route slightly. Indio/ Los Angeles/ Bakersfield/ Visalia/ Salinas/ San Jose... the same thing each time. No one else seemed to notice and Steve sure wasn't going to risk upsetting Tony when a confrontation would do no good. They were nearing San Francisco. Placerville was only a hundred and thirty miles beyond, about five days at a normal Alpha march. They'd be home soon, and Fury could keep all the secrets he wanted.

"Steeeeve," Tony said. He was lying on his back in the cart on top of a pile of assorted semi-soft items. "Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve." 

Steve stopped pulling and turned around to look at Tony. Tony had his eyes closed and his shirt and trousers open to let late afternoon sunlight bathe his distended belly. "Yeah, Tony?"

"Tell me the truth." Tony opened his eyes and looked up at Steve, upside down. "I need to know..."

"What?"

"Am I..." Tony bit his bottom lip and made his eyes huge and vulnerable and even a bit glossy with barely restrained tears. "Am I... glowing? Or am I just... fat?"

Steve blinked. "Glowing, Tony. Definitely you're glowing." 

Tony held his serious expression a few more seconds before he burst into giggles. "You should have seen your face! It was all 'oh noes, what do I say'!" He stroked his hands over his belly, and then looked startled. "STEVE! I felt it! Come here, you gotta try this!"

Steve broke several straps in his haste to reach Tony. He placed his hand against Tony's belly. Something small and firm pressed against his palm. Steve felt himself grinning so widely his jaw hurt. "That's... that's our baby." He leaned down, holding his weight off Tony with his other hand against the cart, and kissed him. "You're wonderful. And you do glow."

Tony grinned.

***

And then they reached San Francisco and the other shoe dropped. "One of the climate control machines is here," Howard said. "The signal is strong."

Tony was sitting up, with his legs dangling over the end of the cart. He scowled down at the gadget Howard held out to him. "Huh. I'd thought all their tech was down."

"Apparently the climate machines are self-sustaining."

"Well, this one won't be for long," Steve said, hefting his shield. "How many pieces do you want it?"

"Intact, Captain Rogers," Fury said. "We want it intact."

"Why?" Steve doesn't like to think that Fury would use this as a weapon, but... the world's in disorder, whoever gets organized first might decide to attack. There aren't enough Omegas to go around. Tensions are going to run high even after everyone knows the war is over. Alphas could go atavistic and try to enslave Omegas even though everyone knows that in the long run, it never works. People aren't pets, you can't just lock them up in comfortable cages and expect them to be happy, and to want to make you happy. Steve doesn't want to admit there really aren't any limits what he'd do to protect Tony, but he knows better.

"To study it, of course," Tony said cheerfully. "Think what we could do once we understand the principles behind it."

Howard nodded. "Reverse global warming and human-caused desertification. Restore instead of destroy."

"Yeah, all right. But first we turn the thing off." Tony rubs his belly. "Baby doesn't want to live in a desert."

***

"Well, that's awkward," Bruce said when they finally located the machine. It wasn't in San Francisco, but on Alcatraz Island. 

They all stood at a small dock looking across the water. In the hasty evacuation every seaworthy ship seemed to have been taken. There were a few rotting hulls, but two years of weather hadn't improved them.

"I could swim over there, have a look," Steve offered.

Tony glanced down at the waves lapping gently at the crumbling wood. "Aren't there sharks? I heard a few convicts made it off the island, but were eaten."

Fury sighed. "Ok, who knows how to build a boat?"

***

With a great deal of theoretical input from Reed, and far more helpful advice from Phil who had built model boats as a hobby, the Alphas scrounged the materials to make a good-sized flat-bottomed rowboat that didn't immediately sink. It took a week, during which time they discovered just how many rats and other vermin had thrived in the rubble. And how many people had started to drift back into the city, Alphas first, which came as no surprise. They couldn't disguise Omega scent, especially not from Alphas gone near-feral with deprivation.

At first they merely watched from a distance, but on the fifth day, a crowd of Alphas approached. "Stand back," Steve said to the leader, a truly imposing black man, tall and wide, and rendered rock-hard by the struggle to survive and keep a group of savages under control.

The Alpha stared past Steve hungrily, eyes fixed on Tony. The other Omegas gathered around him nervously, hiding him in their midst. "We just want to make sure they're all right."

Steve nodded. "They're fine. We're taking care of them. We're strong enough to protect them." 

"Prove it."

Steve nodded. "All right." He flexed his arms and crouched slightly. A fight for possession was a more civilized response than he'd feared. And he had no doubts of his ability. "You and me. Winner leads."

"Winner leads." 

It was a hard battle, no quarter asked or given, but Steve had the advantage, not merely with the Super Serum, but with his bonding to Tony. He wouldn't let anyone take Tony from him. They wrestled, they boxed, they kicked and they bit. Finally Steve got the man in a choke hold and held it, falling down with him and holding until the man tapped out. 

Steve released him and stood, waiting to see if he would have to kill him. The man looked up at him once he caught his breath, and he nodded. "You lead. My name is Heimdall. My Alphas will follow you."

Steve extended a hand to help the man rise. "My name is Steve Rogers. I accept your Alphas as followers."

***

"It's going to take months to fully understand this," Howard said once all the Omegas had been ferried over to Alcatraz to study the machine. There were large cables extending down into the ocean from it in several places. There were buttons and controls set in depressions meant to be accessed by tentacles. There were readouts and dials marked in colors in ways humans wouldn't use them.

Fury leaned over Howard's shoulder. "Can you shut it down?"

"Yes," Tony said from the other side of the machine. 

"Maybe," Reed remarked from an alcove beneath it.

"Oh, come on," Tony protested. "It's obvious those cables connect to the power source. I'm betting on tidal activity."

"Or it could be somehow harnessing the power of micro-shifts in the tectonic plates."

"Ridiculous, San Francisco isn't on any fault lines."

"No, but it's equidistant between two and we have no way of knowing how far these cables extend. It could be attached to both and using the resultant stresses to generate energy."

"I say we just cut the wires."

"And what if there's a stored charge inside, set to a self-destruct?"

"Take a risk for once in your life, Reed!"

"There are scientific protocols to be followed!" Reed snapped back at Tony. "I wouldn't expect a garage inventor to understand that!"

Tony huffed and went over to Steve. "It was a damn NICE garage." Steve put his arms around Tony and patted him on the back.

Fury sighed. "Gentlemen, do _not_ blow up what's left of San Francisco."

"Yeah, no," Tony agreed. "I _like_ Ghiradelli chocolate."


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They reach the Lazy B ranch, yay. Tony is now six months pregnant.

"Hey, guys, the Snakes are Snakes." Jane Foster pointed out just as Tony and Reed were nearing the hair-pulling stage of their 'mature discussion'.

"Yeah, so?" Tony said without backing down from Reed.

"So, it's possible that like some terrestrial snakes, they 'see' into the infrared range."

Reed blinked and exchanged glances with Tony. "That would explain why so many of the controls appear to be blank on the equipment we've studied."

"Uh huh." Tony turned and started rummaging through the nearest pile of tech salvage. "Lemme whip up an infrared detector."

"And I'll mark all the 'off' switches we've found on Snake equipment for comparison." Reed began picking up little gadgets and Sharpie-ing places on them from memory. He really was a genius. A pain to be around, but a genius.

Tony's Snake-o-Vision translated the blank spots Reed circled into eye-blazing patches of red-orange. They gave Jane the honor of poking a Snake-tentacle-sized stick into the only red-orange 'blank' depression on the climate machine. The sub-audible vibration they'd felt since approaching the machine stopped.

"That it?" Fury said. 

"Yeah. Kinda anticlimactic," Tony said wistfully. Steve patted him on the shoulder.

"You can blow something up later."

"Yeah?" Tony grinned at Steve.

***

After another week of study left the machine's operation still mostly a mystery, they decided to leave the city's Alphas guarding it while Steve, Fury and the Commandos took the Omegas to check out the ranch. If it turned out to be a wild goose chase they could probably find something suitable in Sacramento, halfway between Placerville and San Francisco.

"It looks good from here," Clint said as they approached five days later. The buildings were still only vague boxes to everyone else, but they didn't nickname him Hawkeye for nothing. "Roofs seem intact, even the windows on this side are unbroken."

"Dibs on a bed," Tony said quickly from his cart.

"You don't have to call dibs," Steve pointed out. Everyone automatically gave Tony the best of everything, and since he'd started having trouble finding a comfortable way to sleep they'd certainly give him a bed, even if it was the only one on the farm. Even if they had to build one.

"I'm not going to be the pregnant Omega Queen forever."

"I don't know about that," Steve said, turning in his harness to put an arm around Tony. 

Tony leaned against Steve, scenting smugly. "Well, I suppose it _is_ my moral obligation to leaven Reed's genetic contributions to the Omega gene pool."

***

"Hey!" Peter said as they came up the narrow road leading to the main building, "there's solar panels on the roof!"

"Oh, God, power! I won't have to play battery!" Tony was thrilled.

Between the two of them and the rest of the scientists, the glee became rather noisy, and attracted the attention of the cattle grazing in what had been a fenced pasture. Most of the posts and wire were still up, but there were gaps. Big gaps. Gaps big enough to let a very, very large, red and white bull come through. Its ears aimed at them like radar dishes, and it tore up the grass with its big, sharp hooves before it lowered its heavily horned head while snorting.

Steve grabbed his shield and dragged the cart around so he was between Tony and the bull. The other Alphas were scrambling to cover the Omegas.

Fury leaped out of his cart and strode up to the bull. "T-BONE! Mind your manners!"

The bull snorted again, then it lifted its head, snorted a third time and meandered over to Fury who scratched it behind the ears.

"Um," Steve said, "do you want to explain this?"

"Yeah," Tony put in, "we never knew you were a bull-whisperer... on the other hand, a bullsh..." Tony shut up at Steve's sideways glance.

Fury continued scratching the bull's neck. "This is my ranch. What? Did you think I was letting you take these Omegas somewhere I didn't know was safe? What kind of a stupid-ass decision would that have been?" He slapped the bull on the neck. "Go look after your ladies, T-Bone." Fury grinned at Steve. "So, how do you like your bonding present?"

***

Fury's ranch was full of pleasant surprises. In addition to the dairy cattle and small apple orchard, there were several mature pecan and walnut trees, tangled patches of blackberry and raspberry canes, a hugely overgrown strawberry patch, and a small pond stocked with an assortment of edible fish, including trout. "Trout in cream sauce," Tony said gleefully, peering into the pond at the silvery flashes of fish feeding on insects. "With raspberry sauce!" 

"Two sauces?" Steve asked. He was holding onto Tony's arm to keep him from slipping into the pond in his enthusiasm.

"You can never be too saucy." Tony turned in Steve's grip and kissed him. "Let's try out the master bedroom."

***

One of the 'barns' was actually set up as a workshop/laboratory, while the other was a dormitory, living quarters and armory combined. The ranch buildings were only outwardly rustic, and in fact were designed and stocked to withstand a siege. Fury shrugged when Howard raised his eyebrows at the armory. "Hey," Fury said, "You can't really retire a general. We get bored without our toys."

It took them a week to settle in and make what repairs were needed after two years of neglect. But after that, they had to go back. "You know I _have_ to return to San Francisco, Tony," Steve said while packing the cart.

"Yeah, yeah." Tony sulked with his hands laced over his belly. "If you don't go back soon, Heimdall will lose control over the others, and they'll either wander away or break the machine."

"Right. It's not as if you'd be alone here." Bruce and Loki refused to stay with strange Alphas, and neither Happy nor Thor would move from their sides, and Fury and Howard had decided to stay because Fury knew all the codes to defend the ranch (he didn't say HOW, but they believed him), if it came to that. Steve's family was Tony's family. They'd protect him. Steve hated the idea of leaving Tony, but they'd gone over it repeatedly. At six months, Tony was finding getting around increasingly awkward. It made sense not to subject him to another journey, especially when they'd be living in the ramshackle remains of Alcatraz prison, with only the two generators the techs had put together in the last week to provide the basic amenities. Even fresh water would be limited. No baths, and Tony loved the huge claw-footed tub in the master bath. No fresh fruit. No milk. And nothing kind could be said about the beds in Alcatraz. And besides, Tony had already started research on the Snake tech they'd brought with them. It wasn't as if he'd be bored.

"Yeah." Tony rubbed little circles over his midpoint."But you won't be here."

Steve stopped packing and put his hands over Tony's. "I'll stay for a week, and then come back."

"No, no, don't be ridiculous. You'd just have to leave again in another week. I'm not having you traveling alone. You just be back here before little Rogers makes his or her appearance."

Steve grinned. "I've got my calendar. I'll be back before day two hundred eighty." 

"Good." Tony kissed Steve. "And don't forget the Ghiradelli."


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baby's on the way!

Over the next two months they settled into a routine with the three Omegas at the farm experimenting and studying while Fury and the three Alphas took care of the day to day work. Sometimes Howard came down to the lab, but he was still a little uneasy around Tony, so didn't stay long.

"I'm going for coffee while the experiment runs," Bruce said, standing up and stretching. "Can I get you guys something?"

"If there's any of those canned peaches left, I'd like some," Loki replied. "Tony?"

"Hmm?" Tony glanced up from the gadget he was disassembling, and shook his head. "Nah, I'm good."

"Are you sure?" Loki asked. "I can't remember when you last ate anything."

"Mmm... I had that Trout Amandine Happy made." Tony poked at the gadget and looked with interest at the sparks that flew.

"That was two days ago," Bruce said. He went over to Tony and pushed the gadget away from him. "Come on, this will still be here after you eat."

"I'm not hungry," Tony said grumpily. "And getting up is such a nuisance." But he sighed and grabbed hold of the table, levering himself up from his chair. "Ow." Tony winced at an internal twinge stronger than usual. Then he noticed the warm wetness running down the backs of his legs. "Oh, shit." He looked down at the puddle he was standing in. "No. No, no, no, no! I did the math! This is only two hundred and sixty two days! No!"

Bruce stood there, shocked to stillness, while Loki ran over to Tony and grabbed his arm. "Babies don't read calendars."

"But NO! It's not possible!" Tony looked around wildly. "Steve! You know, he's such a big guy, I was sure the baby would take longer than average, not less!"

Bruce cleared his throat and hesitantly patted Tony on the back. "Um, Tony, Steve's physique is serum based, but the serum only creates a somatic change, not a genetic one. Your baby's father... well, pre-serum Steve was... tiny."

"No, no, no, no! Omegas do _not_ have premies!" Tony grabbed hold of the table and gritted his teeth as more flush-slick poured down his legs, cleansing and preparing the way. "I can wait. Not now, baby."

"Two hundred and sixty two days is full-term. It's just on the low end of the range," Loki said. "Your baby knows it's time. Calm down, it'll be fine." Loki was self-assured and smiling. "You're lucky, a small baby is easiest for the first one."

"No." Tony was seriously considering panic. "Steve has to be with me."

"He was with you when it counted," Loki said calmly. "Bruce, help me get Tony undressed and comfortable. I've set up a birthing room here."

"I don't want to," Tony said. He clung to the table until his knees started shaking and he had to sit down and ride out another contraction. "No."

"Everything will be ok," Bruce said, but he looked more nervous than Tony, so that wasn't very reassuring. He and Loki got Tony undressed despite his protests, which kept being interrupted by contractions.

"Ow." Tony curled up, sweating and wild-eyed when they got him to the birthing mat. "I don't... I won't... not without Steve."

"Shhh, Tony," Loki said. He got a basin of water and a soft cloth and began washing Tony. "Relax and just let it happen. Omegas have been giving birth on their own for a long, long time."

"Not... without Steve." Tony looked at Loki through green eyes and growled. "No."

Bruce grabbed Tony's shoulders. "No, Tony! You can't shift now! Honey can't give birth, you know that!"

"Good," Tony growled. "Wait... for Steve." He pulled away from Bruce and Loki. They tried to calm him down, but Tony growled and stretched into Honey, shaking them off his back and getting to all fours. The room suddenly looked much smaller. Bruce and Loki grabbed Honey's coat but he just dragged them along until he reached the barn door. Then he stood up on his hind legs and smashed the door and the wall to either side of it, making a large enough hole for him to stride out into the barnyard where he immediately chose a flat patch of dirt and began digging.

Baby needs birthing den. Baby not safe above ground. DIG. Dig fast. Straight down. DEEP. SAFE.

Loki shouted, "No, Honey, don't," and leaped into the hole, falling onto Honey's back and clinging.

Bruce stared helplessly as Honey and Loki disappeared down a deep tunnel, with Loki still protesting. The others heard the commotion, but by the time Fury and the Alphas reached them, Honey was out of sight, with a plume of flying dirt the only evidence that he was still digging.

"What the hell?" Fury asked, leaning over to peer into the pit. Thor stood next to him, a pitchfork full of hay still dangling from one hand.

"Tony..." Bruce caught his breath and started over. "Tony's having the baby. But he was upset because Steve's not here. So... he shifted into Honey."

"Well, when he calms down, he'll shift back," Howard said. "Right? No harm done."

"I don't... I don't know that. Honey's anatomy... he _can't_ give birth, but Tony's water already broke, so the baby needs to be born soon." Bruce's eyes were wide and green. "We have to get Steve."

Happy patted Bruce on the back. "I'll call him on the short range communicator."

"It would," Bruce said, his voice deepening, "take... too long... Tony... needs Steve now..." He growled and burst through his clothes. "GET STEVE FOR TONY." He crouched to jump, and Happy yelled, "Take me with you!" Hulk looked at Happy, grunted, and tucked him under one arm before leaping off.

"Loki!" Thor shouted down the pit, "I'm coming!"

"NO!" Loki yelled back, "You'll scare Honey!"

Thor shouted something in Norwegian and threw the hay down into the pit. Howard looked ready to jump, too, but Fury grabbed his arm.

"No more fucking drama! You, Thor, go get the barn ladder. Howard, you call Alcatraz, make sure no one pisses off the Hulk." Fury scowled until the Alphas ran off to obey. "God damn Omegas and Alphas, not a lick of sense in the whole lot." He got a chair from the barn and sat down near the hole. "Hey, Loki, anything I can do for you down there?"

"NO," Loki yelled back. "We're fine!"

"That's great." Fury glared at T-Bone who'd wandered up out of curiosity. "Don't you start any trouble now."

T-Bone snorted and backed away.


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> THERE IS A BABY! YAY!
> 
> THE END. *FLUMP*
> 
> MANY MANY thanks for all the encouraging kudos and comments. Honestly, without reader support this would have been a MUCH shorter and less interesting story.
> 
> And special thanks to everyone whose ideas wound up incorporated into this story. LOVE you all.

"Hulk is coming here?" Steve blinked at the comm unit. The techs had assembled it hastily, maybe it wasn't sending a clear signal. "Repeat that, please."

Howard's voice came back, "Tony's having the baby. The Hulk's coming to get you."

"Baby?" Steve said. "Baby?" He stood there with his mouth open so long that Heimdall pushed him to one side and took over the conversation while Steve's mind whirled. Steve vaguely heard them talking about the Hulk and Honey, but he was stuck on the word 'baby'. Suddenly he snapped out of it. "Wait, that's too soon, isn't it?"

"I don't know," Heimdall said. "I don't know how they expect this Hulk to get here today, either." He was kneeling and stuffing in a tin of Ghirardelli powder into an already overcrowded backpack. He started to zip it up.

"Wait, wait!" Peter rushed up, did the last couple crochet stitches in a pair of mint green booties, fastened them off, and put them into the pack. "I was going to add ruffles," he said with a sigh.

***

Loki patted Honey's foreleg. "It's a lovely den, even better than the one you were going to make for me. I'm sure Tony will love it. You want him to see it, don't you?"

Honey snuffled and curled up, eyes squinted unhappily half-shut. They hadn't gone far sideways from the pit, so light still came in.

"Steve is coming. We're safe here." Loki kissed Honey on the end of his wet, black nose. "Bring Tony back so he can have the baby. Please?"

Honey snorted and turned his head away from Loki.

***

The Hulk landed with a grunt on the Alcatraz parade grounds and dropped Happy, who wavered and then fell on his backside. "Woah, what a ride."

"STEEVE," the Hulk roared and punched a hole in the cracked cement under his feet. "BAD STEVE." Heimdall's Alphas aimed their weapons at the Hulk- mostly spears, clubs, and rocket launchers. Heimdall never had said where he found the rocket launchers.

"Wait," Happy yelled, grabbing the Hulk's leg and pulling himself upright. "It's all right! What he means is that Tony feels bad because Steve's not there." Happy looked a little green himself. "We've got to get you back there right away. I mean, like now."

Steve strapped the backpack on, and strode over to the Hulk. He looked up at the worried wrinkle on the Hulk's forehead. "Did Tony do something stupid?"

The Hulk growled. "TONY HONEY BOTH STUPID." He poked Steve in the chest. "STEVE COME TONY BE NOT STUPID HONEY."

Steve grabbed the Hulk's arm. He didn't know what Honey had to do with it, but it didn't sound reassuring. "Let's go."

"Wait a moment," Happy said. He threw up and grimaced. "I hate flying. Come on! Let's go." He let the Hulk pick him up, too. And then the Hulk turned around and leaped again with an Alpha bundled under each arm.

Heimdall watched them go. "Now, _that's_ an Omega," he said with admiration.

***

"Every four minutes now," Loki said. "You're doing great." The light of Tony's arc reactor was augmented by an oil lantern Loki had hung from a protruding tree root well out of the way of Tony's pacing and occasional arm flails.

"Great. Yeah." Tony leaned over and braced his hands against his knees while Loki steadied him with an arm around his shoulders. "That's why I'm having a baby in a FUCKING PIT. Steve is going to KILL ME."

"Don't be ridiculous. Steve is going to feel guilty that he wasn't here. He'll wait on you hand and foot. As if he doesn't already." Loki helped Tony lie down on a pile of clean hay topped with several layers of sheets.

"Not... not Steve's fault." Tony closed his eyes and moaned. "Except that it is. Oh, god, I'm never ever going to be pregnant again. NEVER."

"Of course not." Loki ran a damp cloth over Tony's sweaty back. "That's the same promise I made every time."

"If you're trying to make me feel better, it's not working. I hate Steve. I hate Honey. I hate...oh.... that's... oh..."

Loki went over to the ladder set at the end of the tunnel and climbed up until the rungs ended a couple feet short of the top. "More sheets, Thor!"

***

"No, no, that way!" Steve shouted, and pointed off to one side, as the Hulk took off again. It wasn't the world's easiest job, navigating while being pogo-sticked under a green armpit. No wonder Happy had been sick. 

The Hulk landed on a house. _crunch_. "SORRY." The Hulk corrected the angle and took off again.

***

"Two minutes!"

"THIS ISN'T a FUCKING LAUNCH!" Tony yelled. His face was bright red and he was gasping for breath in between curses.

***

The Hulk landed near the house, tumbling Steve and Happy to the ground before he shrank back into Bruce. Happy hugged him and they staggered over to the pit. Steve was already there, pushing Howard, Fury and Thor aside to shout down into it.

"TONY!"

"YOU BASTARD!" Tony screamed back at him from the unseen depths of the tunnel. "I HATE YOU AND THE FUCKING HORSE YOU RODE IN ON!"

Steve winced. 

"He's fine," Loki said cheerfully. "Honey wouldn't let anyone else come down, but he'll be glad to see you."

"I'M GOING TO KILL STEVE! STEEEEEEVE, COME HERE!"

"Really," Loki said. "You'd better hurry."

Steve didn't bother with the rope Howard held out to him or fumbling to reach for the ladder, he just jumped straight down, landing in a crouch and immediately heading for the mingled green and yellow lights illuminating the tunnel at right angles to the pit. Loki was sitting, petting Tony's shoulders. Tony was on his hands and knees, head-down and moaning. He was open so wide, Steve could see the curve of the baby's head.

"You're just in time to catch!" Loki said. He pointed at the jug of hand disinfectant nearby.

Steve yanked off the backpack and washed up hastily before kneeling behind Tony. "I'm here. Everything's going to be all right."

"Uh...huh..." Tony said. He grunted with effort. "This... better be ... worth it." He bore down so hard Steve could see the muscles rippling through his body and then, there it was, in his hands, looking so tiny and red and screaming like a banshee. He was afraid for a moment that he'd hurt it, but then Loki took over, picking the baby effortlessly from his hands.

"Yes, this one's a keeper," Loki said with glee as he carefully cleaned the baby's squirming body. "A girl Omega! She's got great lungs, and her daddy's hair!"

Tony rolled onto his side with Steve's help. "Huh. Yeah." He was grinning like an idiot. The baby had a full head of blonde hair and baby blue eyes, of course they were blue, but Tony fancied they were bluer than most. She was perfect, all ten fingers and ten pink toes, everything on her whole tiny body was perfect. He reached out to touch her. "She's cold."

"Well, it's a bit chilly down here," Loki said, "Let me get her dried off a bit and then we'll wrap...oh." 

The baby squirmed and grew a plush coat of thick blonde fur. Her ears pointed and swiveled towards Loki's voice, and then she yawned and stuffed one tiny fist in her mouth.

"Well, hello, Kitten," Tony said with a grin. "So that answers the question, can the serum cross the placental membrane along with antibodies. Bruce will be fascinated." He reached for the baby. Loki wrapped her in a blanket and gave her to Tony who sat up, leaning against Steve who had his arms around both of them.

"You're not naming her Kitten, are you really?" Loki asked.

"Nah." Tony looked at Steve. "Samarra Lise Rogers." Then he smiled. "I'd like you to give her a name, too, Loki." Steve nodded as he tugged the blanket down just far enough so he could see his baby's fuzzy cheek and her long, long eyelashes.

"Oh." Loki was speechless for a moment. "You know...well, you don't know... but in my family it was always good luck to name a child after someone who passed on. So they could look after her. Would that be all right?"

Tony nodded.

"My oldest daughter was named Hel. In America, I suppose you'd call her Helen."

"Helen." Tony smiled. "Yeah." He grinned at the baby. "And when you're naughty, you'll get the whole name, Samarra Lise Helen Rogers."

"She's never going to be naughty," Steve said. He kissed Tony's cheek.

"You forget whose daughter she is," Tony remarked.

"Never." Steve hugged his family, and felt so happy he wanted to shout.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: I originally meant Samarra as a merger of Tony's mother's name, 'Maria' and Steve's mother's name, 'Sarah' but as it turns out, Medieval Islamic writers believed that the name “Samarra” is derived from the Arabic phrase “Sarra man ra’a” (Arabic: سر من رأى), which translates to “A joy for all who see”. 
> 
> For a girl (they never did decide on a boy name because I told them it was a girl), Pepper and Jane chose the name of a female scientist, Lise Meitner (1878 – 1968). Look her up! She's amazing! She fought her way to get an education at a time when girls in Austria were denied schooling past age 14, fought prejudice as a Jewish woman from Austria, (they'd only let her work in the BASEMENT) even though she was collaborating with Otto Hahn in Berlin in studying nuclear particles. She calculated the energy released when uranium atoms were split and coined the phrase 'nuclear fission'. The discovery led to a Nobel Prize for Hahn, but nothing for her. She continued research in Stockholm into her 80's.

**Author's Note:**

> Tony's other form is actually a merger of ermine/stoat, ferret, and honey badger. Tony Badger Don't Care!
> 
> Reader encouragement is awesome. The fic dedicated to my commenters / kudoers. :^)


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